Himitsu
by Sei-chan-1999
Summary: The untold story of Sumeragi Subaru and Shirou Kamui in another Universe; a connection, fated to die all too soon, that took glory for a few moments in the sun before being consumed by the darkness.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** _**Himitsu**_

**By:** Sei-chan-1999

**Summary:** The untold story of Sumeragi Subaru and Shirou Kamui in another Universe; a connection, fated to die all too soon, that took glory for a few moments in the sun before being consumed by the darkness.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters. All rights to Clamp. This same disclaimer applies to all future chapters too.

**Warning:** The whole story takes place in the AU world. The only things I maintained from the original canon are the characters and their honorifics because X wouldn't be X without them.

An AU X/1999 and Tokyo Babylon Multi-Chapter Fanfic.

XXX

**Chapter 1-Himitsu**

He went shopping for clothes.

Stopping at the branded clothes store with the halogen lights hissing through the glass in the rain, he remembered a time when he'd walk past the display stands of fake people clothed in rich suits and mannequins in fashionable dresses, carelessly looking at them for a few seconds while he waited for a light to change or a taxi to pull up.

This time, he walked in, his white trench coat billowing a little behind him as the blast of the cold air conditioner from inside mixed with the lukewarm but wild breeze of the rainstorm outside.

He sneezed.

No sooner had the door slid shut than a female assistant was nearly on top of him.

"Do you need a towel, sir?"

He did need one, his hair was sopping wet and he was dripping liquid onto the marble flooring of the brightly lit boutique but managed to shake his head firmly and then winced as he sprayed both of them with the rainwater.

"No thank you."

He left her there in a vain effort to find something suitable and end this nightmare before it escalated any further. He became uneasily aware of the fact that he was attracting a lot of unwanted attention from most of the girls who worked in the stare; they were all eyeing him and he shut his eyes for a minute to calm himself down. They didn't know what he was here for.

Sumeragi Subaru. Shopping for designer clothes. He was hardly able to believe it himself.

He stood there at a slight loss, looking around the shop that was practically empty and couldn't help thinking that if the country were socialist, the existence of such extravagant places like these would be a crime against humanity. Not that he had any right to make observations like that, with a monthly paycheck that could've fed everyone in his apartment.

His phone vibrated.

He always kept it on silent mode, out of courtesy, except for those few months when he'd find his phone in ridiculous places just minutes before he left for work and he'd have no time to inspect it for tampering so during a meeting or session with a client hours later, when someone called, his office would be filled with the deafening noise of a farting crowd or thousands of screaming women and burping babies.

Now, it was back to silent.

He picked it out, flipped it open with his mouth since his other hand had fallen asleep in its pocket and took the call.

"Arisugawa-kun? Is anything wrong?"

What a stupid question. What _else_ could go wrong after everything?

The person on the other side coughed uncomfortably.

"Sumeragi-san? I just called to see if everything is all right. I apologize for disturbing you."

"Please don't. I was about to call you anyway."

"What is it?"

"Sorata, _what_ do I buy?"

He let the long suppressed desperation leak into his voice, dropping the formality and told himself that it was a few more hours and then, he'd be back in his apartment, with the whole thing finally closed. Just a few more hours.

"Um, well, that's kind of hard. Where are you now?"

Subaru could imagine the teenager scratching his head as he thought it out.

He told him the name of the shop and listened to him have a cardiac arrest on the other end.

"I'm paying for it," Subaru added resolutely when the teenager tried to protest.

"Subaru-san, with all due respect, Kamui-"

"I'll see you in twenty minutes. Will you help me make it faster?"

He heard the resigned sigh and waited.

"To be honest, Subaru-san, I have no idea what to tell you to get. He would wear a dress if you were the one who bought it."

Subaru coughed, choking on his own saliva as his body quickly aborted something that might have been laughter or a sob.

Then, he understood the deeper nuances under the humor.

"You mean, Kamui…"

"Yes."

He kept silent for a few minutes, rethinking the whole relationship during the course of a few seconds and hating himself every second for having been so willfully blind.

"I'll see you soon," Subaru said finally and cut the call.

He finally chose black jeans and a cuffed white shirt that he held up against himself to test the length and then went for one two sizes smaller. He added a pair of light-up sneakers and finished it all off with a black tie, which had been the thing on his mind from the beginning.

For the first time, he felt glad his salary was that high.

XXX

He met Sorata at the door to an exhibit room and wordlessly handed him the shopping bag. He was drenched and it was already nightfall, even though the time was barely seven.

The tiny studio lights built into the ceiling added a wave of contrived cheerfulness to the depressed atmosphere that radiated from practically everywhere and Subaru wished he could knock them out and stand in total darkness instead.

"What did they do up till now?" he couldn't help asking, using his sleeve to futilely dry his hair and feeling it stand up in adolescent spikes.

Sorata stared at the floor, drawing invisible designs onto the speckled tiles with one dirty heel of a sneaker.

"Paper sheets," he replied with a grimace.

Subaru stared and barely registered the sight of a suited middle-aged man who came forward to take the bag. As Sorata moved to give it to him, Subaru made up his mind and quickly reached between them, blocking Sorata as he did so. He rudely whipped out the sleek black tie from within the bag, rolling it around his fist and met the other's stare defiantly.

The man blinked at him curiously while Sorata raised an eyebrow. Subaru turned away, pretending to look at something else until the stranger's footsteps receded.

After a while, the silence got unbearable.

Subaru pulled the tie out of his pocket and smoothed it against a wall, working the wrinkles out of the slippery strip and waited for his breathing to return to its normal pace. Sorata stared absently at the tie for a few minutes and then turned away.

"How is Arashi-san?" Subaru asked, to be polite, to pass the time, to do anything that would get rid of the sick feel of superglue in his mouth and lungs, making him so numb inside. Sorata began to say something when the stranger returned and bowed politely.

"In here, please," he guided them down the hallway. Despite its reputation and the people it housed, the place was grand and majestic, with the feel of a museum or a modern cathedral instead of what it really was. The hallway was a black and ugly tunnel, with its true nature lined with soft carpets, dark glass cases and subtle lights as a disguise.

They stopped outside a heavy wooden door. Its bottom was shielded with plastic so it scraped the edge of flooring that spilled out from inside the room but it still didn't keep in the frigid breeze that curled around Subaru's ankles, chilling his skin even through the material of his jeans.

The man caught sight of the tie.

"Would you like me to take care of that for you, sir?"

Subaru felt Sorata's warning glance at the back of his head but ignored it.

"Thank you, but I'd prefer to do it myself."

The man studied him almost sternly and Subaru addressed the teenager instead.

"Are you coming with me, Arisugawa-kun?"

Sorata shook his head.

"Arashi and I are done. It's your turn."

He silently thanked Sorata in his mind and flung open the door to the bluish and sterile world beyond. He let it close behind him, sealing him into isolation and breathed in the smell of death that no temperature could ever really cover up.

Sumeragi Subaru went over to the raised metal table in the centre of the room and pulled down the sheets concealing the body on it.

A breathtakingly ethereal teenager lay under the white material, his eyes closed, dressed in the same clothes Subaru had bought earlier that evening.

His expression was much too calm for Subaru's liking, missing the customary scowl, the triumphant smirk or flustered bewilderment he had gotten used to seeing. Surprisingly, the teenager looked smaller and thinner than he had in life and maybe, despite what science said, there _was_ something that left a person's body after them.

Kamui Shiro had been murdered three nights ago.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**Well, here it is: my first SxK multi-chapter fic. I've never done this before and read a lot of other AU fics to get a decent idea of how to develop my own ideas. So, any criticism/ advice/ comments would be gratefully accepted. As of now, I think I know where to take this but am working on it when I can. **

**By the way, the title 'Himitsu' means 'Secret' in Japanese.**

**Oh, and as always, please read and review. I'd do the same for you anytime. Leave questions in the reviews or message me. **

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	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The first day had been for the politicians and the police to see Kamui's remains.

The second day had been for the press, and pictures of his barely covered corpse had been splashed in full color across the pages of the papers that very evening.

Subaru wondered how the hell they'd managed to cover up the marks, wasn't even sure if they'd bother doing it anyway and that was why he'd made sure to get clothes that would cover Kamui fully, preparing himself for the worst.

Unable to help himself, Subaru pulled apart the collar of Kamui's shirt to take a look for himself.

And pulled it close again before he could retch.

He had been foresighted for once.

Subaru threw the blankets off and looked down at him properly. He'd been wondering about what to do at this specific part. With Kamui dead before him, he really couldn't bring himself to do anything. He had finished grieving and the world had seen him do it. The feeling-less chill would remain within his body for the rest of his life.

_He would wear a dress if you were the one who bought it._

Perhaps not.

He swallowed hard and touched Kamui's face gently with two fingers. He'd felt enough dead bodies to know how it would be beforehand and this was no different.

Instead, he got to work.

He pulled the teenager's new shirt into position, making sure the tailored creases aligned with Kamui's narrow shoulders and tugged it down from where it had been messily left up. His blackish hair, with streaks of fading violet, was wild due to the lack of interest by the undertaker who'd dressed him but then, that was all right. It saved Subaru the trouble of messing it up for him. Everything else fit Kamui perfectly and there was only one thing left.

Subaru did the collar button up carefully, making sure not to re-break the barely healed injuries underneath the shirt where the skin would now never reform fully. He left the stiff collar standing so Kamui resembled a teenaged Dracula for a few minutes as he disentangled the tie for the umpteenth time and looped it around the slender neck.

Subaru tied it as professionally as he could manage with fingers going rapidly stiff from the cold and occasionally brushing against the raised scars on the younger's skin. Finally, after struggling with the tie, he pulled it tight and straightened it. He folded the collar down again and stepped back to inspect Kamui one more time.

So much effort for a body that he could now only keep in his memories.

He briefly let himself wonder what it would be like to grab the teenager's corpse, break a window, jump out, run and take it with him to have Kamui buried properly before he shook his head in disbelief.

Spending that much time with him had really done something unnatural to his usually inactive imagination.

Kamui's death was something he hadn't accepted as a possibility then; a time when other violet-eyed teenagers were being killed at night and students with a 'Shirou' in their surnames were being pulled out of school and questioned for hours on end. He had just never expected it to actually happen.

And yet, with the dead teenager sprawled before him, completely exposed, Subaru realized that just because one minor story had come to an end, the other millions of stories that made up the city and world they lived in wouldn't stop simultaneously.

His was one of them, much as he went against it. And he had to move on.

He turned his back to the boy at last and left the room.

He stopped for an instant, just short of the door, feeling chills race down his spine, as if he were being glared at viciously from behind, but when he took a final look, he was completely alone and Kamui was still seemingly asleep on the slab, lidded eyes facing up to the ceiling.

He exited.

XXX

"Subaru-san?"

He turned as he slowly sipped from the cup of coffee he'd been brought earlier. It was uneducated and infantile but he still felt like he was drinking ditch water or someone else's urine when he raised the cup to his lips. He told himself that the coffee had probably been made in a metal coffeemaker, away from the rooms that hosted the different bodies, some of them riddled with diseases, others with injuries and only one or two with peace on their faces. The coffee was probably cleaner than the one he made in his own home. (They surely used the coffeemaker more than once a week) But he still felt disgusted as he let the reluctant sweetness of the beverage slip down his throat.

"Subaru-san."

He jerked his head and realized that he had gotten distracted.

"I'm sorry?"

Sorata looked at him peculiarly for a minute. They were just on the other side of the door and under normal circumstances Subaru would've been horrified by the idea of eating when he was barely ten feet away from a dead person but he knew Kamui wouldn't have minded.

"Did you see that?"

It was hard not to, the distorted yet human mass of darkness lingering behind the frosted sheet of rain-spattered glass that served as the only window to the outside world in the room. It hovered for a few seconds, coming eerily closer to the grey surface of separation, almost to press up against it before seemingly changing its mind and flinging itself away, disappearing and leaving only the grayness behind.

Sorata shuddered and Subaru watched dispassionately.

"Leave it," he said and the teenager, who had been about to go to the window, hesitated.

"What?"

"It wants me to come out. So leave it."

Sorata peered at the Sumeragi curiously as a brief flare of emotion writhed like an ugly worm across the twenty-five-year-old's features before it was easily laid bare again.

"Okay," Sorata said and ignored the window and fished around for something else to say.

"Do you know what the real cause of death was?" he asked finally.

Subaru coughed before swallowing hard. He looked for a place to put the cup down but saw none in the vicinity and resigned himself to holding it.

"Didn't they mention it in the paper?"

Sorata frowned as he tried to recall.

"I'm pretty sure they didn't, Subaru-san. It just said 'succumbed to grievous injuries caused by an accident and there was his photo," he smiled half-heartedly for a second, "I've never heard Nee-chan say a bad word before that."

"He was murdered and his death was staged. Everyone knows it."

"Don't say that _here_!" Sorata hissed at him in panic.

"It is true," he repeated mildly, "Arisugawa-kun, it's a known fact. This room is made 100% of the blood of a countless people like Kamui."

He was tempted to argue some more for an instant but the fire receded all too quickly and he took another sip of his coffee quietly before he finally decided that it was pointless to torture himself any further and upended the cup with the flick of his wrist, spilling the lukewarm brown liquid onto the carpet, where it bubbled for a few seconds before disappearing.

"99% blood and 1% coffee," Sorata supplied finally as Subaru watched the ground.

Unsaid. Untold. Secret.

Not anymore.

"Sorata," Subaru said at last, "I want you to know what really happened. This might take some time. So please, sit down."

XXX

They stayed like that in silence for a while, when he had finished.

"You bought Kamui light-up sneakers?" Sorata asked suddenly.

"He always liked them, but he was too embarrassed to ask me to buy them for him. Why do you ask?"

Sorata pointed down behind him and Subaru turned to see tiny flickering lights of blue, red and green flashing through the dark strip of space between the bottom of the door and the floor of the chilled room.

"Those are it," he confirmed.

"These sort of shoes-" Sorata began and he looked pale, "I don't think you've ever had these before, Subaru-san."

The older man gave him a flat look.

"How would you know that?"

Sorata swallowed with difficulty.

"Because, those lights only turn on when the person wearing them is walking around."

It took a few seconds for the idea to register and take shape in his mind, but when it did, Subaru hurled himself at the door and threw it open.

**XXX**

**Author's Note: **

**So that's chapter two. I apologize if things are moving rather slowly but they will pick up in time. I promise. I'm sure you'll all enjoy the next chapter. Installments are once every week.**

**About the mysterious entity outside in the storm and the chapter's last little touch…I'm still considering whether to reveal it in the next chapter or not. What do you think? XD Let me know!**

**Until then, please read and review. Thanks a lot!**

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	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

To say that the eight-year-old unnerved Sumeragi Subaru would've been the understatement of his life. To say she drove him to the edge of fatal confusion and uncertainty with her seemingly casual questions would give a person a mild idea of the effect she had on him.

To the outside world, he was the valiant therapist for an almost feral child who'd been overly indulged. In reality, very little Psychoanalysis got done and she wasn't spoiled at all. Just lonely and unheard.

The first visit had been epic.

"_Do I get client confi-dentistry?" the furious eight-year-old had demanded, refusing to sit down, ready to throw a tantrum if he didn't comply with whatever she wanted._

_It made a pleasant change from the clients who were so chronically depressed that they couldn't even muster up the mental energy to raise their head and look at him._

"_Do you mean client 'confidentiality'?" Subaru had asked quietly, careful not to smile and incense her any further._

_The girl nodded. She was dressed in a sparkly white shirt with hand-painted wings on the back (the hand in question being her own), along with pair of denim shorts which she had, by the look of it, slashed herself to the desired length and brightened up with silver streaks. Her dark hair was short and tousled, standing in tiny black spikes at the back and dropping into pixie bangs at the front. The girl's eyes were vividly green, just like his own, he noticed, as she inspected the room's sofa as if considering whether to bounce on it or not._

_Subaru reached into one of the drawers in his desk, extricated a few sheets of stapled paper and handed it to the surprised child after finding the right place for her._

"_This details all the rights you have as my client, including your rights to confidentiality," he explained as the girl tried to organize the sheets on her lap and sank back onto the couch in amazement, "Go through it and let me know if you need me to explain anything."_

_He excused himself to get some water and a painkiller; the girl's hyperactivity had given him a slight headache. Upon getting back, she was still scowling through the lines of heavy text, much to his surprise._

_When she looked up at him, her expression was a little less predatory._

"_So, if I've done a crime and I tell you, do you have to tell my parent?" she asked._

_Subaru forced down another smile and nodded, noting the singular usage of the last word. Parent. Not Parents._

"_That's right. Anything else?"_

_The girl looked at him and flushed._

"_Actually, I didn't understand a lot of it," she confessed, placing the papers back on his desk._

_Subaru shrugged._

"_That's fine. Most people don't even know as much as you do right now."_

"_Really?"_

"_Really," he promised, "And I'll always answer any question you have seriously. We're two completely different individuals so while we may never actually understand each other, I'll do my best to be considerate of your needs."_

_The girl was silent for a while and swung her legs absently as she scrutinized him._

"_Thank you," she said finally._

"_For what?"_

_The girl smiled at him for the first time._

"_For being considerate. I like considerate people."_

_Subaru bit his lip, not sure of how to reply._

"_What's your name?" he asked finally, "I'm Subaru Sumeragi."_

_She told him._

_Subaru returned her smile and bowed politely to her._

"_I'm pleased to meet you, Hokuto-chan."_

XXX

He was finishing up his talk with Hokuto-chan and it was close to four in the evening of a late sunny afternoon that went against his current mood.

She had to be the first client he had ever had who could ramble on for hours about fashion designing and then ask him for help to do up the laces of her light-up sneakers.

"Thank you, Subaru," she said cheerfully, while he knotted the pink feathery strands as firmly as he could to make sure she wouldn't trip while she galloped like a pony down the stairs later. She tapped her feet as he did and the lights flickered.

"Anytime," he said and offered her his hand so she could get to her feet.

She waved at him cheerily and then skipped out the office. Having gotten everything she needed to say off her chest in their three hour session, she'd be the paragon of virtue in her own house; quiet and well-mannered, until she could unburden herself to him at their next meeting.

Subaru slumped onto his vacant sofa and wondered at despite how the thing technically belonged to him, he was the one who spent the least amount of time with it. He gave everything he possessed to everyone else.

He shut his eyes to let sleep take him before the memories could. He needed to catch up on as much as he could, in case he was called to his second job soon.

His first case for a new career.

It was a field that not anyone could specialize in. He'd undergone training for it until recently and it was time to prove himself capable of what they would demand of him.

A darker job with lesser…ethical compulsions. He needed to prepare himself for what he'd have to inflict, no matter whom it was upon.

Subaru's sleep was deep but disturbed.

XXX

4 inches.

The length of a particularly long worm. The length a child had grown when he'd been away for six years. The width of a college student's textbook.

The length of an open cut across a boy's palm, the color in his face leaking out in the form of blood and spattering everything within three feet of him; the nurses, his clothes, the floor, the chair he was seated on and the shirt-cuffs of the person trying to pinch the slippery wound with latex gloved hands to pressurize the area.

The palm had almost been slashed open in half so through the gaping slit that was impossible to close at once, one could make out the torn shreds of ligaments. Through the gaps in red tissue, one could also see the floor below.

The hand was small and slender. It belonged to a sixteen-year-old male, who was slowly bleeding to death.

The boy in question looked away from the chaos surrounding his hand and pensively surveyed the window of the hospital room he was in.

"Tell us your blood type right now!"

It was the nurse who did it. She looked desperate and three drops of his blood were on her cheek. He stared for a minute at her anxious face and ignored her. The man holding his wrist tightened his grip and the teenager gasped in pain but that was it.

"There's an eagle outside the room's window," he noticed vaguely once he recovered. A hard slap across the face brought him back to real life and he looked shocked for a second but it faded quickly with the loss of sensation creeping up on him.

"We need to know your blood type to save your life," another nurse begged him, getting on her knees (hence kneeling in his blood at the same time) and gripping his uninjured hand to emphasize her point.

"His name is Kamui, it's written on his bag," the restraining man interjected.

"Kamui, please," the nurse begged again, "We don't have time to do a test and find out now."

"I think eagles are an omen of death somewhere," the boy observed slowly, violet eyes still fixed on the bird outside the window.

The man slapped him again and Kamui's head jerked forward to face him.

"That's not exactly encouraging my will to live," he said and leaned back as he felt a little light-headed. He was slapped once more.

Again.

Again.

And yet again.

The side of his face was swollen and angrily pink as tears of pain leaked down that eye.

"This is a waste of time," the man growled, "We're killing ourselves over a worthless liability that decided to commit suicide and failed."

"No pun intended," Kamui couldn't help but to put in. And was too slow to duck another blow.

"That's it," he declared and dropped the teenager's hand roughly, "I'm calling someone who can deal with this better than I can."

Someone came forward with a metal device to hold the wound shut until help came. Kamui tried to move away but was held in place as the cut was clamped close by a dozen or so tiny hair-like spikes digging into his skin and pulling the edges of the wound together as he screamed from the agony. There was more blood, but it was non-fatal and from the upper layers of the surrounding skin that was still intact. The actual laceration was temporarily closed. He was unharmed….for the moment.

_Someone who can deal with this better than I can._

Kamui tearfully watched the man wipe his hand dry in revulsion, before pulling out a cell-phone. He involuntarily shuddered as someone else came forward to clean his face with a moist tissue.

He remembered something he had read in a civics textbook, sometime in school.

_It is a crime for citizens to try and indulge in activities of physical self-mutilation or attempt suicide. Any individual detected and proven of doing so, regardless of age or conditions, forfeits their basic rights and effectively becomes 'government property'._

"This is your last chance," the wide-eyed nurse tried to coax him, "Don't make us bring that sort of person here. He'll take what he wants from you and his ways won't have to be legal."

Kamui shut his eyes for a second and opened them to see the irate man finish typing out a number on the keypad and presumably hit 'call'. He walked away to have the actual conversation with the unseen entity.

Kamui was shivering but he shook his head resolutely and turned to look at the eagle. It stared back at him before disappearing off the ledge.

XXX

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Subaru Sumeragi's cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was time for his next job.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**So…what do you think of the end here? **

**And how many people out there want to kill me for what I did to Hokuto? I tried maintaining the actual aspects of her personality as well as her feelings about what it means to be 'considerate' which she talks about in Tokyo Babylon. I just messed with the age.**

**It's the same thing now as usual. In the end, the writer is your humble servant, striving to please you with everything they have. So please read and review. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Subaru really didn't need directions or a receptionist to point him in the right direction. All he had to do was follow the blood stains that hadn't yet been cleaned and the sound of chaos. He ran up five flights of stairs and slowed when he reached the packed hallway. He pushed his way past nurses, doctors and other specialists, most of whom were there to see the spectacle more than offer any expertise.

An attempted suicide was a rare form of entertainment these days.

He saw the boy immediately.

Sitting in the middle of everything, the eye of the storm, with a pool of blood growing around him.

Kamui was looking harassed and scared as he had his freedom and personal space violated in every way possible,

He'd been given a brief gist of the teenager's background. A 'background' meaning an update of the action of the last twenty minutes. Kamui was just sixteen. He'd been found with his palm slashed open, from the fingers till nearly the wrist, outside his school and he was dying, although permanent damage had been halted for a while. He refused to give his blood type or his surname so the information could not be tracked down either. He was terrified but defiant, determined to end his life.

His job was to rip what he needed from the child, save his life and then, Kamui would officially become public property. That would be his job for tonight.

Almost as if sensing Subaru's presence and what it meant for him, huge amethyst eyes focused on him, a micro-expression of deathly fear flashing across the pained face, before being forcibly covered up. The eyes dropped back down and thin shoulders hunched together. Subaru noticed that Kamui was beginning to hyperventilate.

When the others registered his arrival, the way split open for him in the form of a human corridor and he walked over to Kamui, who refused to look at him, his hand still caught in the metallic trap.

Subaru avoided the puddles of blood on the floor while he studied the child for a few moments and then nodded to the man who'd called.

"I'll take him," he said calmly and bending down, he took Kamui's injured hand carefully in his own, running the edge of a fingernail over the currently sealed cut to test its sensitivity.

He could use that to his advantage.

Kamui swore and tried to jerk away angrily but Subaru easily grasped him and finished the brutal appraisal to his satisfaction while the others watched him in awe.

"There's no need for anyone else. I'm moving him to another room," he said finally, straightening up and glancing at half the hospital's full faculty lounging around the hallway. They got the message.

"How long will you need?" the man asked, "We have a surgery team ready for him."

"Should we clean up the blood now?" a nurse offered. Subaru ignored them both as he wrapped an arm firmly around Kamui's waist, pulling the unsteady boy to his feet without letting go of his arm. He heard someone telling the nurse that it would be a waste to have to clean it twice. Kamui writhed, unable to do anything while caught in Subaru's arms.

He was nearly carried to the nearest bathroom and when they entered the glistening world of polished stalls and metal sinks, he closed his teeth over his lips, promising himself that whatever happened in here between them, he wouldn't let himself scream.

Subaru sat Kamui on the edge of a sink and leaned him back against the mirror, waiting for him to find his equilibrium before he stepped away and held up the boy's clamped hand up so they could both see it. It was turning a bruised shade of violet in some places from multiple blood clots. He didn't have a lot of time left.

"Who did this to you, Kamui?" Subaru asked quietly.

Fear fell away to show relief and amazement before fear returned again, but this time in another shade. A darker one.

"I did it myself," he snapped back, "Weren't you listening when they called?"

"You're right handed," Subaru insisted, "You have ink marks all over your fingers. If you'd done it yourself, you would have cut your left hand with your right and not your right with your left. You're lying."

Kamui struggled to say something but decided against it and fell moodily silent. The boy was taller than him since he was seated on the sink and Subaru pulled him down so their eyes aligned.

"Who tried to kill you, Kamui?"

"No one did."

"I can help you get out of this, if you let me."

Kamui laughed, but it was close to hysterical as he tried to rub his tear-stained face with his other hand.

"They called you here to _torture_ me. You really think I'm going to even let you _think_ of helping me?"

"It's your choice," Subaru said simply, "If you prefer death over being treated as government property, I have no right to get in the way of what you really wish for."

He waited. The boy didn't respond.

"You can live," he offered finally, the strongest ultimatum that had served millions for countless eras, to keep them going in spite of every obstacle they faced, that tried to make them think otherwise.

Unless they were him, where life and living were something to be tolerated.

Kamui took a deep breath and turned his head to the side, exposing his unhurt cheek.

"If you're going to hit me like them," he offered, "Can you do this cheek instead of the other one? I like having a matched set."

"You've done nothing wrong," Subaru went on, "You were the victim of an attempted murder engineered to make you look suicidal so you'd be stripped of your freedom."

"Shut up."

"And you're refusing to reveal the name of the person who did this to you. You're protecting them…out of pure fear."

"Stop doing that! Stop talking to me! I won't listen to you!"

His voice was getting shriller, almost as if trying to convince himself and Subaru saw that he was reaching the breaking point. It wouldn't be long now.

"You're being blackmailed by someone in a position of power, someone with enough influence to make you prefer death over facing them again and getting hurt."

Kamui tried to kick him and Subaru took it.

"Kamui, I can get you out of this."

"I don't want to be government property! I won't!"

"You won't."

"How? What can you do?"

Subaru hesitated but he'd committed himself and he went on, somehow knowing that the next few words would change the whole course of both their lives.

"I'll take you."

Purple orbs nearly bugged out of their sockets as Kamui blinked and tried to process what he was saying. The world was clearly going too fast for him.

"No. No, you won't. You're the one who's lying. You'll disappear right after this."

His body unable to take anymore, he careened forward, gritting his teeth as he expected to hit the hard floor. However, his face fell against warm cloth instead and he realized that he was lying against Subaru's shoulder, half-collapsed over the other man.

Subaru pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open messily, holding Kamui with his other arm as he flicked through the settings and found the recording tab. He turned it on.

"That's an ancient phone," Kamui murmured drowsily.

Subaru held the up the device so the teenager could see it.

"My name is Sumeragi Subaru. Say it out loud."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Kamui obeyed.

"Now yours."

"Kamui," the boy chorused.

"Your surname."

"No."

Purple eyes dared him to do his worst and Subaru let him win that fight at least.

"I'll adopt you after your recovery if you choose to live," he said, half addressing Kamui, and half speaking to the cell phone's tiny microphone, "You'll retain all of your rights as an individual if I take you as my ward because my position entitles me and any other government employee to an exception from that law, in consideration of our services."

Subaru spoke clearly, making sure the teenager heard him.

"That's unfair," was Kamui's only dry comment.

Subaru clicked off the device, saving the recording and slid the phone into the pocket of Kamui's red spattered pants.

It wasn't a cell phone anymore then. It wasn't just recorded words or a bribe either. It was a guarantee. The promise of an unborn deal that was yet to be brought to life.

A deal in which, control had suddenly been handed back to Kamui.

The silence hung in between them like a damp sheet drying on a groaning line.

"Six and a half."

Kamui said it almost inaudibly, shifting himself so he was more comfortable and pushed his face into Subaru's shoulder, in an effort to block out the glaring lights of the bathroom.

"What?"

"My blood type. It's six and a half. And my name is Shirou Kamui."

Subaru stiffened for a minute and then called for assistance. Suddenly, everyone was in the bathroom.

"I'll be there when you need me," he promised while scribbling down the information on a sheet of paper on a clip-board that was offered to him. The teenager clung to him tightly. He was unwilling to let the doctors take him away from his only source of salvation in a life that had literally been torn to shreds. "You have proof of that," Subaru told him again, "Kamui, it's going to be all right now." Meeting steadfast green eyes once more, Kamui took a shaky breath, nodded and then let go.

"They should have some system where blood types are in letters instead of decimals and then one letter could donate to everyone else," Kamui muttered as uniformed medical staff pulled them away from each other.

"That's an interesting idea," Subaru said, smiling down at the barely conscious teenager, somehow disregarding everyone else in the room. He caught the slashed hand and held it tenderly for a moment.

"I'll see you soon."

Kamui's face contorted as he squeezed back in reply, transferring some of his blood onto Subaru's fingers.

"Thank you, Subaru."

His eyes slid shut and he was quickly taken away. Subaru left soon after.

Only the bloodstains on the ground remained for a slightly longer while, reminding the unseeing world of what had taken place there.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**I have no idea what to think of what I wrote just now, so some opinions would really help. The scene parallels to X, if you saw them, were intended because I want an AU where the feel of the original canon is maintained. I hope I've done that.**

**Thanks for reading and please review! I'll post again soon, so leave questions in the reviews or message me. My sincere thanks to all my other reviewers.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

…_anti-social and self-destructive tendencies that seemed to have developed as a result of constant mental and physical abuse at the hands of a…_

"Are you hungry?"

Silence. And then-

"No, thank you."

Subaru let him be and leaned back in his chair. The computer's brightness was giving him a headache and he lowered the setting.

…_a highly unstable individual and a potential threat to himself and others, while between the ages of…_

He was with Kamui in the living room of the apartment tower's single flat he occupied. The once blistering hot afternoon had become a serene night; the completely wrong time of day to be sitting on a sofa, reviewing a patient's three year old case study. His computer had for some reason spat it back at him from within the depths of its metallic memory.

…_chronically depressed and traumatized after being rescued and found with horrific injuries to his body post the 6-month long ordeal (see full list on pages 3,4,5 and…_

The sixteen-year-old boy was on his couch, resting against the side and propped up by pillows. He kept curling the fingers of his free hand in the soft blanket he'd been covered with, while the immobile one lay idle on the watery surface of the fabric. Kamui was tensed and kept jerking up in surprise every time Subaru's eyes flicked to the top of a new page, as if he expected the older man to call out to him or worse…

…_a sustained period of responsibility and regained self-interest whereupon the subject returned to school to finish his education and further qualify himself…_

Subaru decided that he couldn't work with Kamui staring at him as if he expected to be raped any second and grabbing his laptop, he went over to the nearby table that faced the darkening skyline beyond, so the teenager could have some superficial level of privacy.

"Is there anything you need, Kamui?"

"I'm fine. It's ok."

Subaru gave up for a while. He'd been true to his word and brought back Kamui from the hospital three days later, where the child (he couldn't help thinking of him as one; he _was_ short for his age) had been waiting for him; nervous and pale but apparently alive as he cradled the hand that had been practically mummified. The car ride had been awkward with him driving and Kamui mute next to him, until the younger boy had pretended to fall asleep.

"Subaru…I mean, sorry, but I -"

Subaru turned around to face Kamui.

"What is it?" he asked gently so not as to spook him.

"I forgot to give you back your cell phone," Kamui stammered, "It's in the bag over there."

He tried to point with his right hand but winced and cut off the gesture midway.

Subaru decided that it was as good a time as any to get some things straightened out. He came over to sit at the foot of the sofa Kamui was on and shook his head when the boy tried to sit up hurriedly in response.

"Kamui," he began, "There's no need for you to change anything about yourself just because you're here. What happened that day isn't something that you should feel ashamed about. You don't owe me anything."

"I didn't-"

"There are things you don't want to tell me and I'll respect that. You're just here for your own safety and you can leave any time you want."

He was being a filthy hypocrite. If at the age of sixteen, he'd been brought to live in the house of the person who'd been hired to torture him for information, he wouldn't have been half as communicative as Kamui was now. He would've retreated under the nearest bed, blushing and trembling. And Kamui couldn't leave. It wasn't an option at all. As soon as he did, his new status would be revoked and he'd be public property before he knew it.

They were trapped with each other.

He leaned over and laid a hand on Kamui's forehead, feeling slick black hair under his skin; there was a slight heat and that meant adding another three pills to the already intimidating medication list he'd been given at the hospital's pharmacy department.

"I can't leave, can I?" Kamui asked softly.

Subaru looked at him and then took off his hand. It was moist with Kamui's sweat. He wondered if it was fear or the fever.

"You can't," he answered.

"Sorry about this," Kamui said at last. In the silence that ensued, the clock ticked, the fridge whirred, the computer hissed from the table and Kamui's stomach gurgled as the teenager looked mortified.

"Don't be," Subaru said, standing up to get some dinner, "You're better off than me. And I got myself into some awful things as a teenager."

He shut the kitchen door firmly before Kamui could enquire any more.

The case study on the frozen laptop lived valiantly for a few more seconds before virtual sleep could claim it.

…._the subject, Subaru Sumeragi (22), fully recovered, is now a renowned Psychoanalytic Counselor. He also has a successful secondary career as a government employed…_

The screen went black.

XXX

"Thank you for the food."

Subaru nodded in reply and watched the boy try to feed himself with his left hand as he balanced the tray he'd been given on his outstretched legs. Subaru sat on the floor, pretending not to notice anything to make Kamui feel more at ease, while being around to get anything he might need.

He let the teenager take a few bites and when he began to slow down, he asked a question.

"What do you do, Kamui?"

Kamui looked up, startled, but there wasn't as much shock as there had been before. Food did amazing things to one's temperament, he noted.

"I'm a Type-H," he said, falling silent after that. Subaru waited. It was a common reaction.

Type-H or type 'Hiatus' students were simply that; students who put their studies on hiatus as teenagers to concentrate on careers and accumulating a small fund to ensure a living after which, they would return to schools or colleges, armed with more experience and finances, to qualify themselves further.

No one really did the second part.

Meanwhile, Type-S students ('S' ironically stood for 'Serialized'— to him, the whole thing felt more like terms to describe a comic's run than an education system) went on to complete the full sequence of their education before going to work; meaning they had a wider menu of choices to pick their livelihood from, which Type-H students were not competent or trained enough to take on.

"There's nothing wrong with being Type-H," Subaru insisted, when Kamui remained silent, "Everyone has a unique situation and they make the choice for themselves."

"You don't know the way people look _down_ at you, like you're something dirty for being Type-H," Kamui said at last. He lost his grip and dropped the fork to the ground by mistake but Subaru snatched it away before Kamui could bend down to pick it up and passed him a spoon instead.

"I know," Subaru said simply, after Kamui got a hold on that. He went to his laptop since the boy far too jumpy around him and scanned his case study one last time. His finger twitched over the 'delete' button but instead, he saved it under an alias and stored it away. He quickly shut the device down and then came back to sit near the sofa.

Tired of watching Kamui wrangling with the spoon he'd been given to scoop up the boiled rice (he hadn't even bothered considering giving the child chopsticks), Subaru freed the utensil from his fingers and started feeding Kamui himself.

The sixteen-year-old looked flabbergasted, but opened his mouth like a fish and tentatively let Subaru push a spoonful of rice past his lips.

"I do know what it's like," Subaru said, refilling the spoon while giving Kamui enough time to swallow, "I was one myself."

Kamui tilted his head in mild surprise as he debated whether to believe the older man or not.

"No, you can't have been one," he decided finally and opened his mouth for more food. Subaru complied. His aim was off this time and grains of rice fell down Kamui's shirt. He apologized absently while pondering the boy's reaction.

"Why can't I have been a Type-H?" Subaru asked finally.

"You're too…"

Kamui waved distractedly, trying to find a word and Subaru stopped him before he used the damaged right hand again.

"You can't be what you are if you're a Type-H," Kamui said finally.

"And what _am_ I?"

Subaru placed the spoon down. It was forgotten as something darker and colder took over the room's once almost-homely atmosphere.

"A torturer," Kamui said and waited. Green eyes turned to slits but they almost egged him to go on.

"You let me go because I haven't done anything to deserve it, but you knew how to say the right things when you saw me and do the right things to scare me," Kamui began, "You must have tortured countless other people; people in jails, people who wouldn't talk, people who were lying, people who talked too much and lots more. I can tell. You're used to violence. To know that…you'd have to be a Type-S."

Subaru passed him a glass of warm tea in reply and Kamui hesitated before accepting it with one hand. He kept his eyes on the man's face, weighing up the other's expression while he drank.

"I'm a Type-H," Subaru said simply, taking the things away on the tray when Kamui finished, "And so that you can sleep here tonight without fearing for your life, believe me when I tell you that I've never tortured anyone as a part of my job."

Kamui tried to call out but Subaru ignored him as he left everything in the sink. He came back to tuck the sheets around Kamui firmly and helped him lie down flat, feeling him stiffen to prepare himself to receive punishment for what he'd said before.

It never came. Subaru simply moved back after he had finished.

"Call me if you feel any pain during the night," he said, his voice more sharp than he intended it to be, "I'll be in the next room."

He didn't tell him to sleep well. It would've been almost taunting to do so. Instead, he clicked off everything but one tiny night-light. Kamui tried to apologize again but choked on the first syllable and before he could continue, Subaru had left him alone with the stinging pain in his hand.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**I guess this chapter was more of a chance to allow things to slow down. **

**I hope no one was too OOC here, but if you think about it, in X, Subaru and Kamui's initial conversations are never shown so I think I have a decent bit of freedom I can use here to show them learn about each other and see what they can bring up in front of each other and what they can't.**

**Although this is marked as a SubKam fic, the whole thing is left to the reader. You can interpret the relationship in any way you like.**

**Apologies for the delay in posting. I was on vacation and couldn't get Internet since it was a school trip and you know how**_** those**_** things go.**

**Any opinions? Please be nice to me and read and review. Thanks!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The accursed case study was the reason he had lashed out at Kamui and the same case study brought him back to his bedside (or more accurately, couch) in the middle of the night. It was the thought of leaving Kamui the way he'd been left after too many ambivalent encounters as a teenager himself, trudging through a swamp of uncertainty, not sure if the next thing he said or did would result in his being saved for a moment or having yet another bone broken.

He shook his head to focus on other things.

He didn't have any spare beds to put Kamui in and he was sure that the teenager would panic at the idea of sharing with him even if he himself thought nothing of it.

He still remembered what it was like to be a teenager. The very idea of being invited into someone else's bed, even for the most practical of reasons, whether it belonged to a man or a woman, would have turned him into a mess of blushes, flailing hands and stammered words.

Kamui had fallen into a light sleep that was clearly uncomfortable since he kept shifting and his mouth was open while he was drenched in sweat. In his sleep, his left hand was worrying at the bandages that were wrapped around the right, trying to scratch at it and relieve some of the soreness. There was already a tiny dark patch on the whiteness of the cotton.

Subaru simply put his pillow on the floor next to the sofa and pulled Kamui's left hand away from his body and held it in his own instead. He leaned back onto the pleasantly chilled floor, and felt the summer breeze stirring his hair faintly. He must've left the balcony door open after the confrontation with Kamui and forgotten about it.

There was a small noise above him and Subaru turned his head to see that Kamui had awoken and was staring at him with droopy eyes, not completely free of the effects of his medicines. Even there, there was a slight wariness and regret.

"I'm sorry for what-"

"It doesn't matter, Kamui," Subaru cut across him and lay back down. The pillow slid from under his neck and he twisted round to pull it back into position.

"You don't have to stay here," Kamui said finally, and tried to pull his hand away to scratch at the wound.

"Don't do that. You're causing more damage," Subaru objected as he reclaimed the hand and somehow even that had become another challenge between them, another battle of wills and Subaru wondered why he could never let go of one.

Kamui bit his lip and scowled sleepily, obviously considering whether to disobey the twenty-five-year-old's order, but then stopped trying to pull and loosened his fingers. Subaru let go.

Kamui turned onto his stomach with difficulty, moving his head to the side so he could look down at Subaru. A random thought ran through the older man's mind; maybe this was what a sleepover felt like.

"I can't sleep," Kamui said finally.

"You just were," Subaru pointed out.

"That wasn't sleeping."

"Then what was it?"

"Closing my eyes and wondering when you'll come around to kill me because of what I said."

Subaru sighed and sat up. He would've turned on a light but it was an easier conversation to hold in the dark. He couldn't make out the color of Kamui's eyes in the blackness but could see the tiny little glimmer in them, like a raccoon or some nighttime prowler. He focused on those.

"You did nothing wrong," he said, "You're living in my house and you had every right to ask me that question. You deserve to know that at least."

"It's okay. You don't have to tell me," Kamui said weakly.

"I'm going to. Do you want to listen?"

"Yeah."

Subaru sighed again, wondering how things had ever come to this; telling an abridged version of his life story to a teenager.

"What I said a few hours ago is true," he said, by way of introduction, "I am a Type-H student. Not by choice, but I was. Unlike most people, I only put everything on hiatus for about eight months. I got back and finished the rest of my education, but while I have the expertise of a Type-S, I'm actually not considered one."

"You worked during those eight months?"

"No," Subaru said, "I didn't."

Pause.

"I was worked on."

"What?"

Kamui's voice went up slightly higher. Subaru wasn't sure if it was the medication making him act that way or the gloomy ambience surrounding the story.

"At your age," he went on, "I was left no surviving parents or relatives. I had no rights to myself since I was a minor. But there are lots of people like that. They get absorbed into schools or jobs and reach the age of majority without problem."

"But you didn't?"

"I came to the attention of someone with a lot of influence. Someone who could control me long enough to force me out of school and turn me into public property for six months before the authorities found out about the mistake."

"Then what happened?"

Kamui leaned closer to him, forgetting his throbbing hand, the fear and his own tension, almost dying to drown himself in someone else's pain, just because it wasn't his own and would maybe feel better than that which actually belonged to him.

"I was in a hospital for the next two months after that. I was partially insane by then. Then, when they let me out, I went back and finished what I needed to and got two jobs. The first one, although you don't know, is a Counselor."

"What kind?"

"Psychoanalytic. And you know my second job, don't you?"

Kamui started and then stopped, not wanting to say the word again.

"I am technically what you would call a torturer."

"Why?"

Subaru moved back against the cushion Kamui's head rested on, making sure he didn't hit the teenager in the face while he did so.

"It's a job that doesn't require textbook knowledge or examinations, Kamui, despite what you may think. Type-S or Type-H, it makes no difference. You need to understand other people after looking at them once and with what you see, you use what you have…to break them."

"But you said you've never-"

"That's right. I've never done it to date."

"So, how do-"

"You were to be my very first subject," Subaru said finally and felt the body on the sofa shudder.

"If it was an actual attempted suicide case, you would've done it on me."

It was a question put forth as a statement.

"I don't know."

Kamui stopped talking and swallowed to moisten his dry throat. The noise was amplified in the night.

"So, you're fine now?"

Subaru frowned at the new question.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, you're okay, right? You're an adult and you're safe and that person isn't there to hurt you."

"He left after those six months. I never saw him face-to-face again."

Kamui breathed out, the hot air ruffling Subaru's hair and opened his mouth again.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"What exactly would they have done to me...if I became public property?"

Kamui said the words gingerly and curiously, as if trying out the taste of addressing himself as an object.

"We can talk about that in the morning. Go to sleep now."

Subaru tried to lie down again but Kamui grabbed the back of his collar and wouldn't let go.

"No. I want to know,"

He gently removed Kamui's fingers and turned around to face him. One word flashed through his head upon seeing that face.

Child.

He turned Kamui's head up towards himself a little and raised himself onto his knees.

"Are you aware," he said softly, so not as to alarm him, "that prostitution is legalized in this country?"

Sure enough, when Kamui jerked violently, Subaru made sure that he didn't injure himself.

"No!"

"Public property means that you have no rights," Subaru said, hating himself some more with every word. Every second he kept talking, he was more or less enslaving Kamui to himself.

"There's no difference between you and a pencil that's left out for use; a pencil that can be broken, sharpened, passed around and used over and over again by a hundred different hands until it's just a stub."

It was easier to explain through a metaphor. But so much more painful to hear.

"I'm a human," Kamui hissed in his face, "They can't just let people do whatever they want to me like I'm not alive! It's disgusting!"

"You're not alive, through the government's eyes," Subaru said, "To them, you tried to commit suicide. If you can't even tolerate your own existence, why should others put up with it? You don't deserve the same rights they are entitled to."

Kamui tried to sit up and Subaru moved back to let him.

"It's not only that," he continued, "Clinical trials, products testing, experimenting, labor, surveying, verifying torture techniques-"

"Would they have done all that to me?"

Subaru looked down at Kamui's bare feet and curled toes and decided to answer another question instead. He didn't want to see the tears streaming down the teenager's strained face.

"They did to me."

Kamui started to cry for real then. He dropped his head and sobbed softly while Subaru watched. He tried to put a hand on Kamui's shoulder but it was knocked off roughly and the boy pushed himself away from him.

Instead, Subaru just wrapped the dropped blanket like a shawl around the teenager and laid back on the floor, letting him get it out his system. It was the only comfort Kamui would accept from him then.

There was an advantage to being used to torture even if hadn't done it yet. He could sleep through the sounds of crying.

Sometime during the night, when the sobs subsided, there was a word from above him.

"Subaru?"

It made him draw his breath sharply to hear his name in a voice that sounded so battered but he replied calmly enough.

"I'm here."

"Why do you work for the government?"

A predictable question.

"I need the protection they afford me."

"Even after what they did to you? All those things? You don't care?"

A child's question. Or maybe_ he_ was the child. It was hard to tell.

"There's no way everyone can be happy, Kamui."

He let the boy think about that for a while. It was an interesting discovery with multiple meanings.

There's no way everyone can be happy.

Maybe it meant that out of all the happy and content people on the planet, a few would be hunted by tragedy and misfortune for the rest of their lives, to balance out the difference.

Or perhaps, it meant that not a single person on the planet was ever totally happy; that they all had their own black parasites festering over different parts of their lives.

"Can I tell you now?" Kamui ventured finally.

"Tell me what?"

"Everything."

"You don't have to."

"I want to. Please?"

"Should I turn on the light?" Subaru asked as he sat up again.

"No."

He heard Kamui rustling around and felt him slide to the floor to join him. He wrapped his arms around his legs and yawned.

"Turn on the TV instead."

Tragedy had too many flavors and it always felt good to try another before returning to his own. That was his job, after all.

Subaru prepared to drown himself in Kamui's pain too.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**So as you can see, this is a pretty screwed up dystopian country in another world. It has no relation to any actual place on Earth and is totally fictional. The views expressed in this fic are not my own personal opinion on real things and is just imagined for the sake of the story. I wanted to make sure that's clear before I go on further.**

**I know this chapter is dark, both figuratively and literally but things will get moving. I have a decent idea of how to move the characters around on my little fanfic chessboard now.**

**As always, please read and review. Thanks for all the support!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Kamui watched the twenty-five-year-old flip open the box he pulled out from beneath the sofa and pick out the right remote control.

He hadn't meant to start crying like that; it had just happened after hearing everything that could've happened to him if the phone number the man had dialed in the hospital had been anyone else on the planet. Fear and hysteria and desperation. He felt better now, even if he was in his crumpled pyjamas in front of a potential torturer who was now his official guardian.

"Which channel do you want?" Subaru questioned gently and Kamui thought about it.

"I'll show you."

Subaru switched on the TV and they were both bathed in light for a few seconds until the older man called up a directory on the screen and then handed the remote to Kamui, waiting for whatever lay ahead.

"You know I'm a Type-H," Kamui said as he accepted the remote and frowned at the choices on the screen (there weren't a lot) before flipping to a channel. It was three in the morning and he was amazed that things were still being broadcast.

"You told me before."

"So, I was fifteen when I stopped working. I never knew my dad and my mother died of a terminal illness around then."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Kamui blinked at him, clearly not sure how to respond to a condolence and it struck Subaru that he'd probably never received one before.

"Anyway," Kamui went on, "I got a job. I couldn't go to the government because they want Type-S, no exceptions, so I tried private instead."

He stared intently at the channel he picked and Subaru turned to watch too.

It was an advertisement.

The ad split the screen in two, showing two boys around twenty or nineteen, brushing their teeth and obviously getting ready to proceed through their day. One person was using the toothpaste the advertisement certainly advocated while the other one used a tube where the name had been blurred. They both went through their respective days; greeting people at work, meeting friends, doing assignments, attending meetings and finally, going to a party to meet respective girlfriends and then going off with them to separate dark rooms.

"This is a really bad example," Kamui muttered and tried to fumble with the remote but after the brightness, his eyes couldn't make out the settings on the keypad and he was helpless. It wasn't that he had a problem with stuff like that; he was sixteen after all, but seeing it with a twenty-five-year-old adult next to him was unthinkable. Subaru tried to help and save his dignity but he was more or less in the same condition as Kamui dropped the device and swore.

The boy who used the disguised toothpaste brand leaned forward to kiss his companion on the lips and graphic green smoke spewed from his mouth as he did so. Seconds later, the girl dropped dead to the ground and the horrified boy ran to commit suicide from the top of the building.

The other couple had a more…successful rendezvous in a nearby bedroom. All thanks to the toothpaste that lasted longer.

Subaru wished he hadn't installed a high-definition surrounding sound system.

"Don't look," He warned and tried to shield Kamui as he resurfaced with the remote.

Wrong tactic. As a Psychoanalytic Counselor, he really should have known better.

Kamui spun, saw what was taking place on the screen and turned a fantastic shade of red in the low light before yelping and snapping his head to look at Subaru. He instantly regretted that the next instant and stared holes into the ground instead while the older man quickly flipped to another channel.

"Sorry," Kamui said in a small voice.

"It wasn't your fault. Just…just leave it."

Subaru's complexion echoed Kamui's as they knelt, facing each other.

"So, I just showed you that to tell you that….that's what my job."

He quickly amended himself before Subaru could think any more.

"I mean, not what was _in_ that ad but the ad _itself_, you know?"

"You mean the design and development?"

Kamui itched his head, still completely not over what they'd witnessed together but valiantly went on.

"Not only that. We make the ads for the private companies we work for, add suggestions, make fun of them, make sure they get broadcast at the right time and if rival companies try to defame us, we find out evidence of that so we can sue. And lots of other things too."

"Advertising and Investigation," Subaru offered and Kamui nodded.

"Yep."

"That's a good job," he said, marveling at the fact. No wonder the world of television never got dull; how could it, with teenagers controlling the whole thing?

Which resulted in the sort of ads these days.

"I don't do ads like that," Kamui declared finally as if reading his mind.

Subaru smiled.

"I could tell," he said and for the first time, he saw Kamui smile.

"Apart from a dramatic introduction that I totally screwed, that was my job, mostly," the teenager went on, "I did other things too, but they thought I was the best for finding rival companies and bringing them down."

Subaru looked down at Kamui's dead hand, bundled in white and streaked with red and he finally understood.

"Companies are easy to mess around with, especially if you look at their ads," Kamui went on rather self-consciously, "If there's an ad that's even slightly racist, or religiously biased, or insulting another company, or one with false claims or abuse or basically, _anything_ that could get them into trouble if people actually had the time to do stuff like that, we found them out and messed with them. After that, the company we work for handle the lawsuits and arrange boycotts and stuff. It involves a lot of money and everyone wants to be on top of everyone else."

Kamui went over the last few words he had said and squeezed his eyes shut in agony.

"You…." Subaru began, ignoring the adolescent innuendo and focusing on what to say next.

"Say it. Just tell me how useless I am. I know it already, though." He looked fixedly at his hand.

"I wasn't going to say that, Kamui," Subaru said and Kamui looked up.

"Then what?"

"It's a competitive world. And a dangerous one. And I respect you for being there no matter how it ended for you."

Kamui stared at him before breaking into a dizzying grin.

"Thanks, Subaru."

"Your hand?" Subaru asked, gesturing at it.

Kamui laughed shakily.

"People should get killed for better things. Things more important than _advertisements_."

Subaru backed up to the wall, motioning to Kamui to come with him so they could sit more comfortably and face the television. He realized that sometime during the course of the night, he'd lost the ability to think of Kamui as 'the child'.

That would be a complication soon.

"Do you want a painkiller?" He asked as Kamui adjusted to the new position.

"No. I'm ok."

"Well, I don't feel like sleeping anymore. What about you?"

"Nope."

"Then we might as well watch TV," Subaru said as he reached for the remote and browsed their options, "What do you like?"

It had been too long since he'd watched with someone else.

"I'll watch whatever you watch," Kamui said contentedly, yawning.

"You're lucky I don't care for the business channel," Subaru muttered before finally settling on the news. He wondered what was going on the other side of the country while others slept, oblivious of life passing by them.

"It must be weird to live in a country with only one or two time zones," Kamui said, watching the grainy coverage of a union strike somewhere, where the time read '1:48 pm'.

"It's a lot more convenient," Subaru couldn't help but to say and place the remote down.

Kamui snorted.

"Who wants 'convenient'?" he asked, "Where's the fun in that?"

Together, they systematically moved through an International piece of news, a national one, a local one and then a short culinary program punctuated by an ad break.

"Any of yours in there?" Subaru asked him, jostling the arm Kamui was leaning on, to return feeling to it.

Kamui frowned, trying to recall, as the colors and images flashed over his face and faded.

"Nah," he said at last and relaxed against Subaru's shoulder again.

The next news item was a political interview.

"Are you sure you wouldn't want to watch something else?" Subaru asked as someone began a lengthy introduction about the person about to be interviewed.

"I don't mind this."

In truth, Kamui didn't want Subaru to get up any time soon. He was feeling comfortably drowsy at last. And sometime during the last few hours, he'd started thinking of the older man by his name instead of 'the torturer'.

When a new man appeared on the screen, Kamui knee gave a little spasm above Subaru's leg and he twitched.

It was nothing. It was something Kamui's body might have done involuntarily, or he might have budged to get to sleep easier but the gestures, minute as they were, were enough to tell him everything.

The man on the screen.

Kamui's discomfort.

"_You're being blackmailed by someone in a position of power, someone with enough influence to make you prefer death over facing them again and getting hurt."_

He remembered his own words.

"Kamui?"

Kamui didn't answer him, gazing at the screen with more concentration than the older man had ever seen on his face up till then.

He could see more of the violet iris and Kamui's breathing rate was suddenly racing past his own.

"Kamui!"

The teenager turned to face him, panicky and petrified.

"Is he the one who tried to kill you?"

Subaru pointed at the screen where the man was speaking.

"_Many believe that it is due to the lack of incentive and motivation that most commodities in today's economy lie stagnant and unused, but I can say with confidence that the field of advertising is a manifestation of…"_

Kamui turned back to study the man on the screen. He was in his mid-thirties, with short black hair framing a pale countenance. He was wearing a stylish black business suit that struck the perfect balance between sophistication and attractiveness. He had a pair of obviously expensive spectacles pushed into his hair instead of over his eyes.

And where there should have been two honeyed eyes, there was only one. The other was a void of foggy white.

The name at the bottom of the screen:

Sakurazuka Seishirou.

"That's him," Kamui said, trying to sound upbeat even though he looked like he was going to pass out, "The man who makes advertising fatal."

"Kamui, why did-"

"Don't."

"What did you-"

"Subaru. Please stop."

It was respectful but the older man could detect the tautness underneath.

"All right."

He stayed on the channel for a few more seconds before changing it.

Subaru flicked over to a Barbie movie three channels away, just to see how Kamui would react. The teenager stubbornly glared at the screen without protest and soon fell asleep again. Subaru watched pink shadows play across his face before he turned off the television, plunging them both into the darkness together.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**So, another beloved X character enters. More about him soon!**

**Kamui in advertising. Or more like an advertising intern out of pure necessity. I always thought he would enjoy it if he ever survived X/1999. This is an AU fic after all so please have mercy.**

**How was it? Read, review and let me know! Thanks for your support all this way!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 **

**(3 days later)**

"Subaru?"

"What is it, Kamui?"

"Would you torture me?"

The twenty-five-year-old put down the newspaper he was engaged with, to frown across the dining table they were seated at, towards Kamui. The boy looked back at him innocently, swirling his fork around the thick chunks of scrambled eggs on his plate.

"Why don't you rephrase the question?" Subaru said finally and raised a cup of coffee to his mouth.

"I like it the way it is."

It was morning and Kamui swung his legs under the table, sending the liquid in the glasses above rippling and watched the world gradually brighten outside minute by minute. The canvas beyond the metallic skyline in the distance had first been pink, delicate orange, soft scarlet and would soon turn a blinding shade of white.

Subaru bit down on the ceramic edge of the cup while he stared the teenager down.

_Would you torture me?_

There were two ways to take the question.

Kamui could be requesting him to get up and actually torture him with whatever was lying on the table. He was a teenager. That was reason enough to ask such ridiculous things.

Or, he could have been posing the question hypothetically; a way of asking if Subaru would ever be willing to torture him in the future.

"I intend to torture you right now," Subaru finally replied, "I'm giving you math homework."

"What? No!"

"I have no intention of letting you work with that injury so you should try making up for what you've missed in school. I'll help you."

They had removed the bandage the day before and Subaru made Kamui promise at least a dozen times not to do anything strenuous with his right hand. He'd gotten back from work that evening to see Kamui keeping up his end of the bargain by furiously messaging someone on a social networking site.

"I can still work!"

Subaru smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that. Math and English after breakfast, then."

He got up to put his dishes in the sink before the teenager could begin protesting loudly.

"But would you torture me?"

Subaru leaned against the door, where Kamui wouldn't be able to see him from outside and shut his eyes.

"I'd never do such a thing to you, Kamui."

Kamui was adamant. He came to the kitchen to peer up at his face and see what damage he had wrought.

"But could you?"

Subaru hesitated for a second, but let his eyes wander down to Kamui's hand.

"I could."

"Oh. Okay."

They stood a little apart, staring at each other's bare feet while Subaru waited for some of the discomfort in the air to dissipate.

"So, Math?" Kamui offered after a pause.

Subaru nodded.

What didn't kill a person…

XXX

_As people grew older, they reverted to childhood. That was what he had learned and understood that day._

_He'd stopped hugging blankets a long time ago, but now, at age seventeen, he found himself doing the very thing and feeling scarred and burned. He should've removed it and checked himself while he still could in privacy, but his fingers refused to let go of the soft cotton shielding him and sacrificing what little modesty he'd been left with._

_When he was small, he showed pictures to his parents. The ones he drew in school were the ones he was always eager to share; he wanted to know what they thought of him. It was important to him then. What did they think of him? He'd stopped wondering that a long time ago, too. But as he saw today, apparently not._

_What will they think? _

_The television was still going. The TV in this house didn't play any shows, sports or movies; it just had advertisements. Ones from all over the world, for every product or service imaginable, in every human language, new feed coming in every instant, getting recorded, saved and filed automatically by the machine, for the owner to go through later and compare them. Rumors said he sent a box of chocolates to the marketing department of every company he owned, when they delivered yet another good one. The rivals weren't so lucky. Even while they were together, the television had been on and _he'd_ been intently watching the advertisements playing on the screen, almost mindless of the teenager underneath him._

_Someone knelt next to him and he didn't even raise his head to meet the eyes above him._

_No. Eye._

"_Spit," he heard the low voice order and a hand holding folded sheets of tissues cupped his chin while the other one pushed his neck forward into the paper._

_He shook his head, unable to say anything. It wasn't polite to spit. He couldn't. Once he could get up, he'd excuse himself and use the bathroom and-_

"_Subaru-kun. Now."_

_It was a warning and he resignedly let himself retch into the tissue, watching his own crimson saliva stream and get sucked away into fibers of white that they stained._

_It was an unfair reward. The whiteness took in his filth and in return, it was permanently unusable. Tears pricked at his eyes for reasons even he didn't comprehend._

"_Again."_

_He did it, until the total redness had reduced to nothing but a few speckles in mostly clear liquid. _

"_Seishirou-san," Subaru tried to say but was silenced as the blood was then wiped off his mouth with a damp cloth. As if that would help. The real damage was the broken and shredded skin of his lips._

_Somehow, he managed to stand up with the rough help he received and pulled on his clothes. It did nothing except cover up the more visible marks and the pain refused to go away, rising in intensity with every step he took._

_He was unceremoniously carried and left in the backseat of a car while the older man drove. Subaru watched the back of his head, the dark hair against the headrest of the front seat and irrelevantly wondered what he'd look like at the same age._

_25._

_What will my parents say?_

_He said it softly, just to hear the sound of his own hoarse voice and flinched when Seishirou-san answered him, with that everlasting smile._

"_They won't notice, Subaru-kun."_

_Subaru remained silent and let himself fall so he occupied most of the back seat and looked up at the low ceiling of the vehicle. It hurt too much to sit upright. How was he going to get through school the next day?_

_But Seishirou-san wasn't done yet._

"_If they had noticed you, I wouldn't have."_

XXX

When the teenager handed his laptop back that evening, Subaru accepted it with a nod and barely took in Kamui's contorted face or the way his hands shook and the way his eyes were too bright.

But then, he saw exactly what he had left lying out in the open and for a second, he felt his heart screeching to a halt, in a state of being where everything except his breathing was suspended.

A case study.

His own.

Kamui could've easily closed the virtual document and gone on as if nothing were wrong. Instead he'd chosen to give the laptop back the way it had been given to him, to let Subaru know what he had done.

Ready to accept anything he'd be given for reading what had been left out for him.

He sat on Subaru's couch, rocking himself slightly, his hands tangled together and his bangs hiding his face.

Subaru came down to sit beside him. Kamui shifted to give him room, still not meeting his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Subaru," Kamui nearly whispered, a few minutes later.

Subaru put an arm around the teenager and hugged him hard, resting his cheek on top of Kamui's head. Kamui's newly uncovered hand somehow found its way into Subaru's. The older man stared at the ugly and swollen mark on it, following the progress of a drop of yellowish pus oozing from the healing cut in Kamui's hand, into the lines and crevasses of his own.

"I saw an advertisement some time ago," Subaru said at last, "I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I thought it was racially degrading. Would you like to take a look at it?"

Silence answered him. The time on his digital clock read 7:15 pm. The world beyond was slowly fading to black, separating their existence from that of everyone else around them.

Kamui pushed himself harder against Subaru and nodded slowly, letting out his consternation in a long sigh that left him nearly limp.

"It's been a while since I destroyed a company."

Violet eyes narrowed.

"I don't want to get out of touch."

XXX

"_I wish to own myself."_

_Green eyes glared with a ferocity that he wouldn't have believed to be possible himself, but he could see their reflection in the window he was facing. His legs were shaking, the way he knew they would, and that was why he'd worn black jeans and a long sleeved shirt to the confrontation, under his jacket._

_I wish to own myself._

_The words were polite, outwardly formal and mildly said, but the real feeling came from within him._

_The television was on again. There was an advertisement playing. When asked later, he would remember it perfectly. It was for a blue, gel-based soap. The graphics were contrived and of cheap quality. _

_And that set off the chain of flares in his stomach. If Seishirou-san had so much as blinked or twitched an eyebrow, it would've been a victory. But instead, he didn't even tear his eyes from the screen, and nodded absently at Subaru's words until the ad finished._

_The new gel-based soap would supposedly kill 99.9% of all pathogens on his skin. An irrational part of Subaru wondered why the people who talked in the advertisements had such breathless voices. _

_When the advertisement finished, Seishirou-san turned to face him and with a gesture or a flick of a button he'd failed to catch, he paused the television feed._

_Subaru stared down at him. He was standing and the other was seated on the edge of a bed._

_Seishirou-san looked at him languidly._

"_You want to own yourself," he repeated and waited almost patiently for Subaru to agree._

_The seventeen-year-old turned the words over in his mind, trying to unearth loopholes, find out missing facts, see what he had made a mistake in or discover something amend quickly. His brain cross-referenced the words again, trying to find every human meaning he could for the words, to un-sheet something he had missed before it was too late, so the darkness wouldn't turn around to swallow him whole when he let down his guard at last._

"_I want to own myself," Subaru repeated determinedly._

_He didn't notice the one word he'd changed._

"_Of course, Subaru-kun," was all Seishirou-san said and his smile was almost…smug._

_Subaru's life ended eleven nights later._

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**Is anyone able to tell me the fatal flaw Subaru made? The flashbacks are there to give the reader a view of this AU Subaru's life and I hope it's working out fine.**

**Advertisements again. Basically, I have seen too many of them; so many of them that I remember them and not the actual tv shows I watched at the time. That's all I can say. And India has some of the weirdest ads on the planet so that serves as my inspiration.**

**Please read and review and let me know what I can do to make this better! Thanks!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Kamui was curled up on the floor around Subaru's laptop like a cat, trying to work the mouse unsteadily with his left hand, while his right lay unused at the side, like a piece of garbage someone had discarded. He wore one of Subaru's shirts over a pair of his old shorts and his dark hair was still messy from their last embrace.

Kamui's eyes went huge.

"You were right; that ad _is_ racist."

Subaru leaned over to take a look at his screen.

"Are you going to report that?"

Kamui shook his head almost apologetically.

"I'm too late," he explained, "I have to get at the advertisement the first day it comes out and then write and submit the report within an hour."

Subaru raised an eyebrow.

"It's like getting the best seats for the first show of a movie," Kamui went on, "Almost impossible, but if you know a few things, you can manage it."

"And how do you intend to submit these reports?"

Kamui sat up on his knees, rubbing his eyes as he thought about it for the first time.

"Post?" he offered weakly and Subaru came to sit down next to him.

"The address becomes public knowledge," Subaru pointed out, "I'm your guardian and you're safe with me for now, but when you're writing to the Censor board to bring down companies by attacking their ads, you don't put your address on the front cover."

"Oh."

"Don't you have anyone you trust?" Subaru asked, "Someone who could anonymously deliver these for you?"

"I won't be anonymous."

Subaru took a deep breath.

"Kamui," he began as passively as he could, "Please listen to-"

"No," cut in Kamui, pursing his lips.

"You need to think of your-"

"I want him to know that I didn't lose!"

Silence. Kamui realized what he'd just said and who he'd said it to and quickly scuttled backwards, but the older man didn't move from his place. He just watched him, like a specimen on a slide and Kamui maintained that level gaze from where he was.

"All right," Subaru said evenly, "It's all right. You can put your name to the reports and someone else will send them in for you. Agreed?"

"Okay."

"I want you to call that person here as soon as you can," Subaru instructed.

Kamui nodded slowly and took the phone Subaru slid towards him.

"Now, what would you like for dinner?"

"Subaru-"

"Yes?"

"Did you love him?"

He cringed and blinked but stopped where he was, halfway between standing up and sitting down and looked down at Kamui. The actions were a choice; escape it or face it.

He sat down.

"Yes."

"You said you'd never seen him face-to-face after what happened."

"That's true."

"Does it drive you insane…when you see him on television?"

Subaru looked down at the floor. He would have to clean it soon; it was getting a little dusty.

"I mean," Kamui amended, "I wanted to ask you, do you feel like…killing yourself when you see him there?"

Subaru straightened and tilted his head.

"Why would you ask something like that?"

"Because that's how I feel."

Subaru took his cell phone and put it in Kamui's right hand and helped him close his inflamed fingers over it.

"Make the call," he said as he got up, "And when you write your report, I'll proofread it for you."

Kamui flipped it open with his teeth and started to dial.

XXX

By the time it was four in the evening at the arranged location, Kamui had slumped over the table and fallen fast asleep, his food and drinks untouched, with his head buried in his arms. That was when the door to the café opened and a couple walked it.

Although the word to describe them would have been a couple, Subaru had never seen two people with polar opposite personalities or appearances.

The boy was maybe slightly older than Kamui, maybe seventeen or eighteen, stuck in a transit between school and college, were he a Type-S student. His black hair was cropped short, with barely any of it falling into wide and good-natured eyes. He was wearing a crumpled, oversized shirt and baggy pants, with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He saw the sleeping Kamui and grinned widely, before calling his companion to his side.

The girl who followed him was short and slim, maybe the same age as Kamui, and her surly expression clearly told the world that being with the boy next to her was definitely not her idea. It was a cruel joke by destiny and anyone who didn't treat it as such would meet an extremely painful death at her outwardly delicate hands. Her long wind-swept hair was black and she was wearing a school uniform.

Subaru gently nudged Kamui awake and pointed.

"Oh, yeah," said the teenager and jumped to his feet, still not fully free of sleep as Subaru stepped out to receive them, mindful of the people around them enjoying their beverages.

"I'm Sorata Arisugawa!" the boy said cheerily and shook Subaru's hand so hard that the twenty-five-year-old was sure that something had to have been dislocated, "And that's my future wife!" he added as he gestured proudly at the girl.

The next instant, he was squealing as she brought the heel of a shoe down onto his foot.

"I'm Arashi Kishu," she greeted Subaru politely and looked at Kamui with concern. Sorata cut himself off as the others in the room began to stare and he inspected Kamui worriedly.

"I'm fine. Really," Kamui insisted, uncomfortable under the attention and Subaru saved him by introducing himself as they slid into their seats.

"How much did Kamui tell you?" Subaru asked as Sorata placed a few more orders.

"Not much," Arashi replied, sipping at a glass of water, "There's always a chance that a phone-call can be intercepted if it sounds suspicious."

"I see."

Subaru quickly explained the situation and after one glance at Kamui for a final confirmation, he went on.

"We need someone trustworthy to submit Kamui's non-anonymous reports," he completed and leaned back to take the bomb's impact.

He wasn't disappointed.

"Non-anonymous?" Sorata spat out in horror, "Kamui, are you _sure_ you're all right? And you do know what 'non-anonymous' even means, right?"

"It's too risky," Arashi said, frowning, "Why would you ever want to go back to work after all this?"

Kamui looked towards Subaru for help but the older man just observed him, watching and waiting and his message was clear; it was his action, his responsibility.

Kamui held up his scarred hand. The stitches were black threads that crisscrossed across the jagged red wound like barbed wire, and the whole thing had swollen up, with tiny droplets of blood which kept leaking out from between the threads. Even that tiny gesture was enough to cause him to clench his teeth.

"I won't let him win," was all he said.

Sorata considered Kamui thoughtfully for a few seconds and then he smiled.

"Good for you, kid," he said and Kamui let his hand fall.

"May I say something?" Arashi asked.

"Please," Subaru said.

"Sorata can handle the reports but I suggest that Kamui, in the meantime, enrolls himself back in a school that's away from your house, Subaru-san."

"You mean, for camouflage," Subaru mused and ran a hand through his hair.

"So he's never in the house alone and since they don't know which school he'll be in, it'll be safer," Sorata offered.

"What the h-Don't I get a say in this?" Kamui demanded, trying to stand up but Subaru pulled him down again. The others ignored him.

"I'll do that," Subaru decided finally, "It's a good idea."

"Sorata! That's not fair! I can take care of myself-"

"Quiet, Kamui."

Subaru said it, his eyes fixed on the glass window that exposed the world outside. There were three people outside, dressed in the regulation white police uniforms, standing awkwardly outside the tiny hotel, completely unoccupied, simply observing the actions of their discussion.

Their eyes were glued to Kamui.

One of them leered at him through the window and the other two laughed. They wiped the amusement off their faces seconds later and then eyed him interestedly, sizing him up almost obscenely, like a fattened duck about to be slaughtered and stripped of feathers.

The teenager's breath hissed out of him abruptly as he fought the urge to crawl under the table and hide there.

"They shouldn't give you a problem, right?" Sorata asked. Arashi instinctively leaned closer to him.

"They have no reason to," Subaru said quietly, "And I have all his papers if they need proof of the adoption."

Kamui made a motion as if to get up and dash from the scene but Subaru quickly trapped the teenager's leg under his own, beneath the table.

"Don't look at them," he said flatly and Kamui turned to him instead, not really seeing him but straining to catch a look at his stalkers through his peripheral view.

"They're going," Arashi informed them, angling her glass to catch the reflection of the scene behind her. Sorata relaxed and Kamui slumped against Subaru, who let go of his leg and swiftly squeezed his hand in reassurance.

"I think I'll go to school," Kamui said at last and broke the lull in the conversation. Subaru paid the bill and allowed himself a small smile in response.

"I can't wait to see your first report, Kamui," Sorata nearly sang out as he stood, "And I hope Sumeragi-san can correct it better than I did."

"What?" yelped Kamui, "Your proofreading is the reason I nearly got fired!"

Arashi nodded wisely and bid them both good-bye.

Subaru led Kamui in the opposite direction. Time to go school-hunting.

XXX

_I wish to own myself._

_I want to own myself._

_There was a world of difference between the two._

_One was a dreamy sort of a hope that sometimes drifted to reality due to longing. The other was an obsession that was defined by action and desperate need. One that someone was compelled to grant._

_So he had confirmed his freedom. That was all right, then._

_But what did it mean to own one's self?_

_He found out eleven nights later._

_The answer was two slashed and almost unrecognizable bodies; a man and a woman who lay in his house._

_Parents._

_Their blood mixed on the floor together, the same composition of the very liquid that ran through his own veins and he was too helpless to do anything but scream._

_Later, after the major details had been dealt with, he was told that at age seventeen, with almost a year left to hit majority, he had no funds or resources. Every bank account belonging to his family had somehow been frozen, misplaced or dissolved._

_He had nothing and no one. He had lost the right to add the even the once respected 'Sumeragi' to his given name._

_He just had himself. _

_Subaru owned himself and nothing else that could help him live on._

_There was only one thing he could do._

_Subaru thought it was funny that doing something by yourself was considered self-mutilation but it was legalized when the government inflicted the same thing. He was smiling when they read out the charges against him._

_The next six months stripped him of his humanity, with him being passed like a parcel from one center to another, without the right to even push away the hand of a person who touched or groped him._

_His current salary was that high for a reason. He'd accepted the official apology quietly, taken the compensation money without complaint and in the end, he'd returned to serve the government._

_He'd never seen Seishirou-san again._

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**I hope this was a good chapter. I put in two more vital characters and I hope I've got them all right. And I'm sure well all knew that I wasn't going to make Subaru's life a birthday party so this is what you get. I always thought it would be nice to own yourself; have your own say in what you do/think but the ways that can be granted can be horrifying.**

**Well, you know the drill. Please read, review and leave questions and comments for me. I'd love to answer.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"So, the ad I found is racist, perverted, screwed-up and is played in between cartoons for children. What is wrong with people these days?"

"I don't think you can write that down on paper," Subaru said, as he watched the video-clip play for at least the eighteenth time on his computer.

"I'm not going to write it down anywhere."

Subaru raised his head.

"What?"

"I'm not going to report that ad," Kamui repeated and threw himself down onto the couch.

"Why not?"

"It's racist, perverted, screwed-up and played between cartoons. Isn't that abnormal?"

Kamui kicked up his legs and sprawled out, messing up his hair with a casual flick. Subaru was glad to see that he did it with his right hand.

"There are so many things abnormal in this world, Kamui, that after a while, even they become a part of normalcy."

Kamui rolled over and laid his head on the armrest to meet his eyes.

"I know that."

Subaru stared back until he realized that his arm was hanging over the keyboard and let it drop to his knees.

"What do you mean, then?"

"_He_ put the ad in," Kamui said simply and looked around curiously, "Do you have anything I can read around here? Without the word 'Psychology' in it?"

"How would you know?"

"Because I underestimated him once and I won't do it again."

"Seishirou-san-"

"_Why_ do you call him 'san'?"

Subaru paused in the middle of his sentence, his train of thought broken.

"After he did all that…stuff to you?" Kamui asked, politely cautious.

Subaru dropped his eyes and stared at his denim-clad legs.

"Seishirou-san," he said finally, "Is still older than me."

"Bullshit. Do you think_ I'll_ call him Seishirou-_san _just because he's older than me?"

"In the end, it's your choice."

"Like hell I will," Kamui continued, "I don't call you 'Subaru-san'. And you don't call me 'Kamui-kun."

"Would you like me to call you 'Kamui-chan'?" Subaru challenged.

He expected flippancy or irritation, but the actual answer surprised him.

"I'll like anything you call me," Kamui said resolutely and lay back down on his couch, "Would you happen to have any how-to-torture manuals lying around? I'm _bored_."

"No, I don't."

And then, because he'd missed too much of his childhood…

"Kamui-_chan_."

The boy just smiled knowingly. It took out the fun of the whole thing.

"Do we just wait for the next ad to come along then?" Subaru asked.

"I swear I'm going to destroy him, Subaru. I will."

Subaru said nothing.

XXX

"If someone asks about my hand, I have a…a cat. Okay?"

Subaru sighed and stared at the hacked mark in reply.

"Not believable, right?" Kamui said hopefully and looked at him, trying to widen his eyes like a baby deer. Gigantic and enticing violet orbs pleaded with him, tempting him to fall into their alluring spell.

Subaru snapped out of it and shook his head.

"That's not an excuse to miss school," he told Kamui, "And it's for your own safety."

"If you gave me some cash for _every_ time you said that-"

Subaru slid the id card over Kamui's head as his response, but on second thought, turned it so the empty back faced the outside world, covering the name, blood type, phone number and address.

"Keep it like that as much as possible," he reminded the teenager, the way he had been doing for the past three days.

He would've liked to walk Kamui up to the school but it was much too far and he didn't think Kamui would be happy being seen with an escort.

"Subaru?"

He stopped in the process of lifting Kamui's bag off the floor to help him get it on.

"Yes?"

"What grade am I actually in?"

He stopped, completely slack-jawed and then remembered that Kamui had stopped halfway through high school and nearly slaughtered. For a moment, he wanted to call off the whole idea and keep Kamui at his side for as long as the younger boy needed the sparse protection only he could give.

He had always hated risks, gambles and bets….hated thinking of how things could go wrong and it was the reason he'd never been able to look more than five minutes before him.

The reason he was somehow more disabled than the people he met and tried to help.

"They'll assess you and assign you a class in a few more days," Subaru said firmly, more to convince himself and gave Kamui a gentle push to get him moving before either one of them lost their resolve completely.

"At least the uniform doesn't have a tie," he noted as the teenager pulled at his shirt's collar, chagrined by its mere existence.

"Do you think I'll live long enough to wear one?"

Subaru jerked at the question, his professional demeanor betraying him the way it always did around this particular teenager. He planned his answer carefully before opening his mouth.

"I intend to make sure you do."

Kamui beamed at him without warning, the almost constant nervousness leaving his face and wiping away the crippling uncertainty shadowing it as something stronger and infinitely more beautiful took its place.

"Thanks."

And he walked out the door on his own.

XXX

"Can I ask you a question?"

Subaru smiled.

"Of course. That's why I'm here."

Hokuto, would've once giggled, pleased with his reply but now, she barely took any notice. He didn't blame her. If he lived the same life as her, he wouldn't have lasted through a single day. As it was, she looked like she was in a foul mood.

It showed in her face and her disappointingly conservative style of fashion that day. The only thing that added a touch of glamour to her plain frock were the hundreds of overlapping words she'd scribbled over it in black ink, so it looked like a page of a hand-written manuscript that had been thrown into a washing machine. He could make out the words 'pain', 'hate', 'love' and 'rage' scribbled over and over again.

"What's your question, Hokuto-chan?" he asked, when her attention lapsed.

She blinked back to reality and sat up in her chair.

"I wanted to ask you," she began, unsure, "If you think its better to be a person who regrets something they did to someone that was really bad, or be a person who regretted not doing something bad to someone else."

A warped question that was born from the mind of a girl of eight. But he'd seen so many deviant things in his life that to him, it felt normal.

"You can't answer a question like that," he decided finally, "The individual case always differs and you can never guess which answer would be right and when it would be so."

He went on.

"I'm sorry. No one can answer that."

XXX

Kamui had good grammar. The things he wrote for his job were read by people more than twice his age. He needed to match up to them. With a little help and a proof-reader, he could claim to have the language skills of any adult.

So his grammar was good. He found himself helping out the boy who sat next to him in Language class. He looked a lot older than Kamui, with an overbearing presence caused by his height and his athletic build, but he seemed perfectly fine with asking Kamui with help and smiled at him and thanked him politely when he finished explaining the other's mistakes.

He introduced himself as Monou Fuuma.

He was docile in class but outside, away from the prying eyes of teachers and students with authority, he took on his real role as the sovereign of the school hierarchy, getting his way either with an impish grin or a few well-chosen words. Kamui knew that Subaru would've never approved but found himself relaxing the restraint he held over himself when the older boy was with him.

"Kamui!"

That was Fuuma, hissing at him to drag him back to the waking world. When Kamui looked at him, the other teenager pointed at the front of the class and Kamui followed the line of his finger.

His teacher was going through an essay in a notebook. The handwriting on the cover told him that it was his own and while that shouldn't have troubled him too much, the _expression_ on the teacher's face was particularly worrying.

And more so, if _Fuuma_ of all people had noticed.

"Shirou Kamui?" he barked and Kamui nodded as he stood, watching the advancing teacher and wondering if it was possible to shave the inside of a person's nose. If so, this man really needed to.

"Is this the essay you wrote?"

"Yes."

Some sense left in him from his nearly forgotten life in school stopped him from saying 'yeah' but forgot to remind him to use an honorific. An eyebrow twitched on the man's creased face and Kamui bit his tongue.

The man reached forward and grabbed his overturned id tag, studying it as if he were a product in a store instead of a real person and his face burned when he felt everyone else joining into their drama.

"You're a Type-H," the man said, barely hiding the scorn in his voice and that was when the part of his mind that handled honorifics voluntarily switched off.

"Yeah."

"Who wrote this essay for you?"

"I wrote it myself."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"What's your guardian's name?"

"Sumeragi Subaru," Kamui said, wondering which of his two jobs the older man would be at. The real one, or the one where he play-acted? At least now, he knew which one was which. Or did he?

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you correctly," the teacher said slowly, dangerously and Kamui realized that he hadn't even bothered to learn his name.

"Sumeragi Subaru."

He didn't know he'd been slapped until he found himself colliding with the table behind him, knocking over a chair that hit his ankle as it crashed to the floor. It was only when he picked himself up, feeling a little drunk, that Kamui vaguely remembered seeing the man's hand arcing towards his cheek.

This really was happening too often.

"Sumeragi Subaru-_san_," the man more or less seethed in his face and something inside Kamui's head went 'oh'.

He wondered how he was going to explain the four fingers tattooed across his face to Subaru.

XXX

Hokuto looked disappointed and that stung him a little.

"I wanted a real answer," she complained and kicked the leg of her chair. One sneaker lit up while the other one stayed dark. Subaru apologized again and watched the colored lights absently, wondering how Kamui was doing in school, until she spoke again.

"I nearly forgot!" She exclaimed suddenly, "My father wants to speak to you today."

Subaru started, outwardly losing his calm for the first time ever in his career.

"I'm sorry?"

"My father. He said he'll talk to you at 11:30."

It was 11:28 am.

"Hokuto-chan, you should have told me before," he reprimanded and she smiled sheepishly.

Subaru hadn't even gotten his bearings after standing up in a hurry, his mind trying to shake itself free of the distractions that clung to it like sticky webs, when the door swung open and a man boldly walked in, stopping right before him.

"Hokuto-chan," Subaru addressed her carefully, but not taking his eyes off of her father, "Would you excuse my rudeness if I asked you to wait outside?"

Hokuto would've pouted but she seemed to sense the change in the atmosphere of the room and nodded in greeting to her father, before she swung off her chair and scurried outside, after shooting Subaru a last look of apprehension.

The man waited for the sound of her footsteps pounding down the stairs to vanish before he pulled out a cigarette and felt his pockets for a lighter.

He smiled coldly as he flicked it open with a practiced hand.

"You haven't changed at all," he said at last.

"Subaru-kun."

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**To the people who want to kill me, this is an AU fic and I promise that with this chapter, things are falling into place so I can get the actual plot moving.**

**Hokuto-chan and Sei-chan as a daughter and a father. It could work. In Tokyo Babylon, Hokuto always looked up to Seishirou-san and genuinely liked him till the end. Make sense? Or do you still want to murder me? Please leave a review before you do, though.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Seishirou-san," Subaru said numbly, through lips that had turned to rubber. For a second, a tidal wave of emotions behind his face threatened to fall upon him and break the mask he had so flawlessly sculpted himself over the years but when he saw Seishirou's face, as amused and uninvolved as he remembered from being a teenager, he forced himself to nod, feeling as if a hangman's noose were around his neck, manipulating him like a puppet as he gestured to a chair.

"Please."

He waited till the older man had taken Hokuto's chair before he did. The room was back to normal. It was just another meeting between a client and a professional.

"Our interactions have mostly been indirect," Seishirou continued, as Subaru fought to keep his world from going dizzy by clutching the underside of his desk, "I was referred to you for Hokuto's treatment by an associate who was impressed by your reputation and looked into your qualifications before recommendation.

He waited for a minute, as if allowing Subaru time to say something but continued when the younger man remained silent.

"I find her progress much better than anticipated and would like to thank you for the efforts you've taken with her. I also wish to discuss the future course of the professional relationship."

He leaned back and waited.

"I see," Subaru said at last, and forced himself to sit back down, "There's no need to thank me. Hokuto-chan is a pleasure to talk to and the root of most her problems is the fact that she is deprived of attention."

Seishirou nodded, seriously deliberating the matter. Then, he spoke.

"My job does not allow me a lot of personal time myself, let alone time to indulge my daughter, but I will put your advice to practice in the future. I'll also make sure she keeps in touch with you. Do you have any other suggestions, Sumeragi-sensei?"

Subaru tried to speak but his throat was dry and his mouth was filling up with sticky saliva. He quickly excused himself and helped himself to a glass of water, focusing more on keeping the fingers wrapped around his glass steady than taking in the actual liquid.

"Hokuto-chan doesn't need people her own age," Subaru said slowly. He counted his still voice as a victory and went on.

"She needs people who can relate to the same things as her. I think that integrating her into a social group or a circle of professionals who deal with a field she likes, say fashion technology, would take her mind off things, until you can come to a compromise," Subaru said slowly.

He focused on the girl and not her father, forced himself to blur the indelible line that connected them; that was what he did to keep himself sane every time she met him during a session.

They were two different people, bound by blood. And what did that mean in the end? Nothing at all. He concentrated on that thought, encouraging it to fill up every space in his empty, _empty_ head.

"I don't wish to take anymore of your time, then. Thank you for your consideration," Seishirou said, and Subaru noticed that he'd been taking notes with his cell phone while they spoke. He looked over them once again and then put the phone away.

"Thank you," Subaru said, swallowing hard in between to keep from choking midway.

Seishirou walked out of his office without a second glance.

XXX

It wasn't a fight. Calling it one would've been vulgar, because to Kamui, fights were ugly things on television where people rolled over each other, swore and shook fists and blood sprayed all over the place, punctuated by grunts and moans.

Fights were things where his head was slammed against the sharp edge of a desk until he was nearly unconscious and a ruler was placed against his limp hand to clinically decide the place where a realistic and potentially fatal incision would be made.

What he and Subaru were doing was not fighting. They were having a silent disagreement.

It was….well, there was no word for it. He'd have to coin one later, maybe.

"Subaru?"

The older man looked at him but his mouth was tightened and the teenager knew he was angry that he had refused to answer questions about his face. He shouldn't have been bothered but these days, Subaru was the one person he didn't want to be angry with him. And to crown it all, from the look on the older man's face, Subaru had problems of his own too.

He couldn't stand it.

He plopped himself at the Sumeragi's feet and sighed heavily.

"Subaru-_san_," he began sarcastically and at least that got his attention, if nothing else did.

"What did you call me?" the older man asked, as if he couldn't quite rely on his ears and Kamui was so relieved to see the anger dissipate that he spilled the rest of the story before his tongue knotted itself up again.

"Wait," Subaru gestured and slid to the floor to join him, "You mean to tell me that a teacher _slapped_ you since you were a Type-H student and because you referred to me by name?"

Kamui was sure that the redness on his face was a color beyond the infrared spectrum but he looked at Subaru's knees and nodded, wishing his bangs were even longer.

Subaru got up and then before Kamui could tune into what was going on, the older man was getting the keys to his apartment.

"Subaru!"

He turned to Kamui, who was still on the ground and extended an arm out to him, inviting him to get up. Kamui backed away from it as if it were a pile of Uranium and Subaru sighed, but quickly hoisted Kamui to his feet before the boy could scuttle away.

"Subaru, please don't do this, he'll kill me tomorrow!"

"I'm just going to talk to him," Subaru said and pulled Kamui along to the door.

"Why can't you send a note or something?"

Subaru didn't even bother replying to that and instead, took a step towards the boy, effectively backing him up against a wall.

"Kamui," he said patiently, "Will you come with me or do I have to carry you like before?"

XXX

They talked for exactly fifteen minutes.

Kamui rocked himself back and forth on the chair he was seated on, feeling like a kindergartener in trouble for throwing sand.

He jumped when the door swung open and Subaru stepped out first, casually walking past Kamui as if he didn't exist. His teacher followed and stopped before and Kamui stood up.

"Shirou-kun," he said tersely, staring down at the teenager, "I am not a particularly intimidating person and wouldn't like you to think so either."

Kamui wondered what to do and tried to catch Subaru's eye but the older man was determinedly staring into another direction.

"However, I do have several steadfast principles and one of them includes my emphasis on propriety. Honorifics are a vital part of any interaction and show a person their place when addressing someone superior to them. Do you understand me, Shirou-kun?"

Kamui murmured an answer, making sure it was too blurred to recognize anything in it, honorific or not.

"I explained this to your guardian and I'm afraid that we weren't able to reach a suitable compromise. I, however, enjoyed having gotten the privilege to meet an eminent member of our society, such as Sumeragi Subaru-sensei, despite our varying views."

Kamui idly scraped his teeth over his tongue and waited.

"The decision now rests with you. No concessions will be made for you in the future regarding this matter and I want to make that clear."

"Thank you," Kamui said stiffly, feeling as if the world had abandoned him.

"Kamui-san!"

He jumped at having been addressed so and looked around.

And saw Subaru with his arms crossed, waiting for him by the door, looking at him expectantly.

"We need to get home before it's dark, Kamui-san," he repeated, stressing on the last phrase and Kamui gaped.

"Subaru?" he said aloud, quietly.

The expression of dumb-founded horror on his teacher's face.

Amazement stretching across his own.

Amusement on the twenty-five-year-old's face.

Kamui shoved past his teacher and running to Subaru, he flung his arms around the older man's waist, hugging him hard and grinning into his shirt. Subaru fondly flicked some hair off the top of his head and they both walked out together, trying to suppress their bubbling laughter.

XXX

"I have trouble finding a word for something."

"Tell me the situation."

"The advertisement is about this gel-based soap and basically, the ad indirectly encourages people to spy on people having a shower. While they're naked."

Subaru wondered whether to point out that most people who had a shower were naked when they did so and there was no need to mention that specifically but decided to let it drop. He voiced out another thought as he stared at the dark head focused on the multiple sheets and forms spread out before them.

"The word you need is _Voyeurism_. And by some chance, do you mean that unsightly blue bar that looks like it's been completely made out of sparkles?"

Kamui's head bobbed up and he grinned.

"How did you know?"

Subaru laughed dryly.

"That soap came out for the first time when I was seventeen. I'm pretty sure I was the second person on the planet to see the first ad for it."

When Kamui dropped his pen and looked up, Subaru knew that he had let out more than he needed to.

"How did you do that?" he asked, staring up at the Sumeragi.

Subaru shrugged.

"I was with someone at the time and they had a really good television," he said simply. It was a fact only known to him; easy to miss and ambiguous. Lucky, that was enough to sidetrack him.

"_You_ didn't have _television_ back then?"

Subaru wouldn't have been surprised if the teenager burst into tears, from the sound of his strangled voice.

"Worse things have happened to me, Kamui," he reminded him and Kamui looked down at the complaint forms and the half-filled reports, written with his recovering hand.

"Will you check my work after dinner?"

Subaru caught the childish plea in the sentence and got up to go and create the currently non-existent dinner that Kamui was too bashful to outwardly ask for. The teenager resumed his work and the first thing he did was to write his full name in a bold font across the top margin of the front page and wait for the inevitable lecture that was sure to follow.

Instead, as Subaru moved to leave, he quickly wrapped an arm around the boy from behind, pulling Kamui back against himself so soft hair brushed his cheek and hugged him hard.

"I'm proud of you," Subaru said quietly and left him there.

Kamui self-consciously pulled his shirt down and flushed.

It was a whole ten minutes before he got back to work.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**I wanted a fluffy Subaru/Kamui chapter so this is what you get. As for Subaru calling Kamui with a '-san' at the end, it sounds like something he would do to prove a point. And if you think about it, Kamui is superior to him in terms of power in X.**

**And that last scene by the way, is a subtle reference to Tokyo Babylon. Anyone care to correctly identify which volume it's from?**

**Please read and review. Things will be getting darker and interesting soon, in my opinion. We crossed the half-way point just a chapter or two ago.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Subaru still found it hard to understand why Arashi spent so much time at Sorata's side when she supposedly couldn't stand him. Of course, he felt too delicate to ask her that. Sorata seemed convinced that one day, Arashi would marry him while on the other hand, Kamui couldn't care less if Sorata brought Arashi or a potted cactus with him as long as his report would end up wherever it was supposed to go.

"Are you sure there are twelve pages?" Kamui asked yet again. They were in Subaru's apartment after they had decided not to risk bringing Kamui outside again, due to the last encounter.

"Don't worry, Kamui!" he laughed, "I'm sure they're all there if you stapled them well!"

Kamui glared at him. His injury had left him unable to load and use a stapler, even with his left hand, and he'd had to call Subaru to work the device every time he needed it done.

"My name is on them, right?"

"On all twelve pages!" Sorata chirped.

Arashi counted them instead and found only eleven. Subaru pointed out the dropped sheet on the ground and Kamui looked murderous.

Sorata coughed and asked to use the bathroom.

When it was time to see them off, Kamui followed Subaru down to the door of the apartment complex's lobby, looking slightly paranoid.

"Are you sure about this, Sumeragi-san?" Arashi suddenly asked, in an uncharacteristic moment of doubt, as she stopped in the process of sliding the sealed envelope into her bag.

"It's Kamui's decision," Subaru said. That was all.

All of them, whether by coincidence or fate, turned to look at him at the same time and Kamui, embarrassed, put up a hand to shield his face from the sunlight glinting into them and to have a decent excuse to avoid looking back at three pairs of concerned eyes.

Oddly, the brightness didn't disappear; it rather intensified and Kamui squinted up in confusion.

Rays of sun, illuminating some of the trillions of dust particles whirling around them, shone right through the nearly healed cut in his hand, making the mark look as if it were glowing, and concentrating the light beam onto his face.

Sorata carefully took his hand and held it up, surveying the phenomena in revulsion.

Kamui turned to Subaru, feeling suddenly helpless, and marveled when he saw the Sumeragi's eternally dispassionate face marred by a fury that tempted Kamui to step away from him.

"Maybe you should get a hat," Sorata suggested softly.

"You think?" Kamui asked, his voice coated with sarcasm. But his clenched fist was shaking ever so slightly.

"We'll visit you again soon, Kamui," Arashi said at last. Sorata understood the nuances in her words and took his leave as well. Their retreating figures walked in pace with each other until they had disappeared around a corner.

"They'll get it seen to," Subaru whispered to him, as if sensing his doubts and Kamui retreated back to the entrance of the apartment block.

"I don't have anything to do," Kamui said, since he couldn't think of anything else to say out loud, "I finished all my homework."

Subaru simply fished a wallet from the pocket of his jeans, opened it and counted the bills folded inside before nodding to himself.

"Come on then," he said, heading out to the main road.

"What? Why?"

Subaru wondered when humanity had become capable of so much sin that their actions could cripple a sixteen-year-old and keep him terrorized enough to stay indoors for days on end. In answer, he pointed at the sky above them and watched, pleased as the vexed teenager followed him, still unsure but more confident at his side.

He studied the delicate face, with the soft yet distinct features he'd grown used to seeing in its various moods, throughout his once monotonous day.

Yes.

Kamui would look irresistible with a pair of shades.

XXX

He set his alarm to ring at four in the morning so he could get himself into place and make something for himself for breakfast and pack a lunch for Kamui and perhaps spend some more time with Hokuto-chan after knocking off a few more preliminary appointments….until he remembered that Hokuto-chan wouldn't be back to see him.

The weight of that knowledge was enough to hit him like a ton of cement sealing him back to his bed in the darkness and for a few minutes, he felt as if someone in his life had been taken away.

Seishirou-san…

He turned off the alarm and let himself take another hour of sleep. He hadn't closed his eyes for five minutes, when something hard and pointed touched the corner of the eyelid, near the bridge of his nose.

Without moving his body, he stretched out an arm to flick on a bedside lamp and saw a rumpled Kamui standing above where he lay, holding the tip of a blunted pencil to his eye.

He had pushed up the shades Subaru had bought him the previous evening into his scruffy hair and practically drowning inside a borrowed pair of his adult-sized pajamas. He looked even smaller and child-like in the dark.

"What are you doing?" Subaru asked curiously, inspecting Kamui's face over the graphite tip encroaching on his vision.

"I'm going to lobotomize you," Kamui said, with a self-congratulatory smirk, priding himself on the intellectual level of his prank.

"You've been reading my old textbooks," Subaru noted and grabbed Kamui's wrist, pulling it even closer, so the tip of the pencil dug into the moist pink lining at the corner of his eye. Kamui nearly ended up on top of him but managed to throw out an arm and catch himself so that their faces were inches away.

"What are you doing?!"

"You're almost there."

"Let go of me!"

"I'll show you how to do this."

"Subaru! What's wrong with you?"

"It's easy," he soothed the teenager, reaching up to caress Kamui's cheek with his other hand. Kamui tried to evade him, but Subaru was stronger than he was. He couldn't thrash around, not when he was that close to impaling the older man. He was effectively at Subaru's mercy.

"I'm sorry! Subaru, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Don't do this!"

"Keep going. I'll help you."

"No! Stop it! Subaru, stop it right now!"

He tried to wrench himself away again.

"You can do this, Kamui."

The pain was unbearable and the glittering grayness was slowly erasing everything else he could see. He could just hear Kamui begging him but couldn't make out anything else. He didn't stop. Kamui tried to bring in his other hand to free himself, but Subaru easily captured his forearm and renewed his efforts despite the teenager's struggling.

"I want you to do this."

"No! No, I won't!"

There was panic in his helpless screams but Subaru held on, refusing to relinquish his grip. He recklessly pressed down a little harder, feeling something give away and a drop of red spread over the world within his right eye.

The same eye that Seishirou-san was missing.

"Don't make me! Please, Subaru!"

The younger boy sobbed his name into his neck, unable to fight anymore and it was that horror-stricken sound which broke Subaru out of his delirium. He abruptly let go and the teenager pulled himself off of him. Kamui quickly gathered himself up again, still holding the pencil. His violet eyes shone with betrayal and alarm that bordered on hysteria.

"Why did you make me do that?" he asked, his voice still quivering, after he had composed himself to a nearly acceptable level.

"Lobotomy," Subaru said simply, pushing down the covers, "Sometimes it drove people insane and other times, it brought those who were thought to be insane back to sanity."

"You wanted me…to make you insane?"

Before Subaru could reply, Kamui held the same blood stained pencil against his own eye and pushed. He was more ferocious than Subaru was and drew a globule of blood with the very first thrust.

Subaru stood up.

"Put it down," he ordered, advancing towards Kamui. A single bloody tear ran down his cheek.

"It's simple," Kamui mimicked him and went in a little deeper, putting some more distance between them.

"Stop it, Kamui. Come here."

His voice was dangerous as he waited for his opening.

"Make me."

Kamui began to say something else and that was when Subaru went for him. He ripped Kamui's hand away from his face, tore the pencil from his grasp and broke it in two with one movement, before flinging it somewhere into the darkness beyond the lamp's region of illumination and heard it clatter to a stop in pieces.

Kamui stared at him defiantly, his eye still bleeding and Subaru dragged him to the bathroom to clean him up. They didn't exchange a single word.

They slept together that night.

Subaru ended up lying next to Kamui, feeling the boy breathe hard next to him, with the sheets pulled above his head.

"I'm sorry," Subaru said at last, "What I did to you was unforgivable."

What an understatement.

"Why?" asked Kamui at last.

"It was irrational. There wasn't a real reason."

A lie, but the teenager accepted it.

They lay together for a while and Subaru pretended not to hear that Kamui was trying to control his breathing.

"What were you trying to say?" Subaru suddenly asked. He remembered Kamui trying to get something out before he had seized him. He let Kamui have the comfort of silence for a few seconds while he got his thoughts together.

The breathing grew more gentle and then the teenager inhaled deeply beside him.

"I wanted to tell you," Kamui began shakily, "That if you're insane, I'll be insane with you."

_If you're insane….I'll be insane with you._

Subaru knew what he was expected to say to that, but he kept silent on purpose, as he picked the shades out of Kamui's tangled hair and placed it on the bedside table.

"You'll hurt yourself," he said by way of explanation.

He pushed some more of the covers Kamui's way and turned onto his side to shut his eyes.

"I don't want to go to school," Kamui said.

Subaru sighed and turned to face him again.

"I know. I'm sorry," he said, "Give me until this weekend and I'll work out something for you. Will you do that?"

Alternating breaths in the dark air.

Then,

"Yes."

"Thank you," Subaru said. His own eye throbbed and when he stole a look, there was already a tiny black bruise forming around Kamui's latest wound. He tentatively touched it with a finger and the boy shuddered.

"I'm taking you to the hospital after school," he informed the teenager. He expected protest but it never came.

Kamui clutched at his fingers instead and they both fell asleep like that.

XXX

A gel-based soap that looked like it'd been made with sparkles and little else.

Came out for the first time when Subaru was seventeen.

Subaru saw it on a television with another person.

The same thing was having an advertisement released for it at least a decade later. An ad that was sure to get reported.

Who else would have a TV when no one else did, that played the newest advertisements as soon as they came in?

His thought processing was sticky, stilted, completely disjointed and much too late, but it was impressive that he had it at all.

"Voyeurism," said Kamui, because he didn't want to get into pleasantries when he felt like he was close to throwing up all the pills he'd taken that morning with his breakfast. To make things better, his depth perception was off thanks to the gauze patch over his right eye.

Seishirou lifted an eyebrow and analyzed Kamui with his left eye.

They matched each other.

"Did Subaru-kun teach you that word?"

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**This is one of the darkest chapters in the whole story and lobotomy is something I first heard in 'Sucker Punch', a movie which revolves around escapism and alternative realities. It's a must-see for anyone who's sick of the same old commercialized stuff Hollywood is putting out these days. **

**How's the end for this chapter? You know things will be getting good soon, so please read and review. And is anyone willing to draw and send me a picture of Kamui in sunglasses? I'm afraid that my developing art skills aren't quite up to that level yet. XD**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Did Subaru-kun do that to you?" Seishirou asked, as he helped himself to a cigarette.

Kamui twitched, unable to stop himself the way he'd seen Subaru do before and knew that was all the confirmation Seishirou needed.

"I did it myself," he said finally.

They were standing together in Seishirou's office and Kamui still wondered how he could've been so stupid to have fallen into his trap so quickly. He wondered what would've happened if he had refused to step into the car with the tinted windows that had come to pick him mere heartbeats after Subaru had left his side.

"There were two of your advertisements, weren't there?" Kamui challenged, "The one played on the cartoons channel and then the one for that piece of soap."

Seishirou nodded with a smile.

"I didn't wish to overestimate you, so I put in the first one," he admitted, "Upon which I realized that I had underestimated you so I brought out a second."

"But Subaru knew," Kamui began, "he knew and he still didn't tell me." He was trying to recall the older man's recognition at an advertisement that was more than ten years old. Why would someone remember an ad of all things for that long, unless it was something important?

"Subaru-kun," Seishirou went on, "Was a petrified seventeen-year-old at the time the advertisement came out so don't blame him for your own incompetency, Kamui-kun. He probably has no idea of where you are right now."

"I shouldn't have gone to school, right?" Kamui asked, for the hell of it. If he survived, it would be nice to spit an aggravating 'I told you so' in Subaru's face later.

Seishirou regarded him coolly.

"Subaru-kun always gave far too much importance to education. It was something he was unable to enjoy himself fully," he said finally and gestured at Kamui to take a seat.

Kamui ignored him.

"How is your hand?" Seishirou queried and Kamui gave him the finger, displaying his slashed palm at the same time.

Seishirou chuckled. He got up from his chair and came over to Kamui who side stepped him, but too slowly as Seishirou caught his chin. He waited, for his neck to be snapped or a spinal cord to be broken, but instead Seishirou released him almost immediately and went over to an intercom to hit the red calling button.

"I need a pair of scissors in my office, please," Seishirou said politely, into the crackling speaker.

Kamui bit his knuckles to keep himself from screaming.

Not again. Not again, _please_, God.

A distorted female voice, a secretary, acquiesced on the other side.

Which is when it hit him.

The third person speech; the way Seishirou addressed someone over him to escalate the sense of foreboding.

The way he touched him, to show him that he didn't have a right to a sense of personal space or privacy.

And the scissors.

"You torture people too!" he realized and when Seishirou turned to stare at him, he started.

"It took you that long to figure it out, Kamui-kun?" The older man asked almost kindly and pointed to the chair.

"Take it."

Kamui obeyed him.

Subaru tortured people because Seishirou did it. He smoked, even if it was out of his sight, because Seishirou did it.

He remained alive, because Seishirou held the reins of his life.

"Consider yourself fortunate that you're with Subaru-kun," Seishirou said and went over to the door as someone knocked, to take the metal implement. He locked it after him and turned on the air conditioner, presumably to cancel the sound.

"If you were with anyone else, I would have killed you already."

He worked the scissors a few more times to stop its joints from creaking and then, walked over to where Kamui sat, taking in every part of the sixteen-year-old's body with molten gold eyes.

"I think you know better than to try and fight this time, Kamui-kun," he said, holding the slightly open blades. Kamui was hyperventilating.

Seishirou bent over him, pushed him backwards against the wooden support of the chair and started to work.

XXX

Subaru found Kamui curled under his bed that evening after four hours of searching, wrapped in a white towel, with his uncovered eye squeezed shut.

"Kamui!"

He pulled him out from underneath the bed, making sure not to hit his head on the metal railing and wrested the towel out of his grasp, his phone already out and ready to call for an ambulance.

Subaru stopped.

There was nothing; Kamui was still in his uniform and apart from a few superficial scratches on his face and a ripped shirt, he was fine.

Kamui had been left untouched.

He shook him lightly to get his attention.

"Kamui, look at me."

"You knew about it," Kamui said, his eyes still shut.

"I didn't, I swear."

"_He_ was the person you saw that ad with."

"Kamui, I'd never do anything to-"

"How would you torture me?"

He opened his eyes finally at stared up at Subaru, looking lost and drowsy.

"What?"

He picked up Kamui and put him on the bed instead.

"Did you take up torturing people because he does it?"

"I'm calling a doctor here, Kamui."

"You don't need to. I'm fine."

Subaru flipped open his cell phone to make the call anyway but Kamui shoved him so hard that he dropped it and it crashed to the floor. The gauze on Kamui's injured eye was curling off, revealing the blackness surrounding the puncture beneath it.

"Why don't you ever listen to other people?" Kamui snarled, "Why don't you ever let me choose what I want for myself? Why do_ I_ always have to put up with the things _you _choose for me and say _nothing_ about them?"

Subaru warily came to sit by him. He took a corner of the wet piece of gauze in his fingers and peeled it away from Kamui's face, letting it fall to the ground with a 'splat'.

"What _do_ you want?" he asked, "You don't know yourself."

"I want you to show me how you'd torture me."

"Why? Why would you ever ask me to do that?"

"Because I want to see. Let me at least have _one_ thing I want."

Subaru got up and left him there. When he came back, he was holding a blade.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes."

Before Kamui could do anything else, Subaru jammed the blade into his ear.

At the same time, he obscured Kamui's eyes with his other hand.

He stopped at the outside edge of the auditory canal, pressing the flat of the icy cold metal against the sensitive skin there and felt Kamui's heart accelerate under his own.

"Don't move," he warned the teenager and Kamui made a small noise of agreement, unable to nod or speak actual words.

"You can't be tortured," Subaru said, twisting the hand that held the blade, so the metal edges moved inside his ear, while not hurting him. Yet.

"You survived an attempted torture murder, so you're immune to any form of torture," he went on, ready to back off anytime Kamui showed signs of losing control or blacking out, "For you, the actual torture would be a relief. So that reduces a lot of options for me or anyone else with the same intention."

Kamui remained silent underneath him. Subaru could feel his eyes shifting frantically under the eyelids his hand held shut.

"The actual torture for you…would be waiting for it to happen."

He scraped the blade lightly against the heated skin and Kamui relaxed, the tension leaking out of his body. When Subaru stilled his hand, he stiffened again.

"You generally don't like people getting too close to you," Subaru observed, "I noticed that the very first time we met. And after your first injury, it's natural to assume that you're afraid of anything sharp. Any person with basic training could combine those aspects and find a way to torture you."

He kept a constant check on Kamui's pulse while he spoke; the last thing he needed to do was to accidentally kill the teenager after promising to protect him.

"He did the same thing you did," Kamui said at last, when Subaru removed the tool and kicked it out of sight.

"What?"

Kamui pointed to the light scratches under his eyes, near his nose, the edge of his ear and around his lips, that looked more like pencil lines than anything else.

"I'm sorry," Subaru said again and Kamui got up unsteadily.

"One good thing happened today," the teenager said, taking a few cautious steps.

"What would that be?"

Kamui laughed weakly.

"I don't think you're going to send me to school anymore."

Subaru found Kamui's tone a little too smug for his liking.

"I'll still be teaching you," he interjected and took the boy's hand to lead him to the table. It was time to eat.

"I don't mind that," Kamui replied and when he sat down he was smiling for real again.

XXX

"I don't want to stop seeing you."

"Hokuto-chan, you're going to be all right. Your father wants to spend more time with you and that way, you won't need me anymore," Subaru tried to persuade her.

Hokuto scowled.

"I might not need you, but I want you," she said and Subaru didn't have much to say to that.

Seishirou-san could change personalities the way other people changed desktop photos on their computers. Hokuto had told him of times when they could spend a few precious hours with each other, where they'd both bake cookies, do karaoke, take long walks around the city, share ice-creams and go sight-seeing, cracking and cracking up at each other's jokes before Seishirou's phone rang and destroyed the fun, calling him away to another engagement.

Subaru wrote down his personal number and email id on a piece of paper and handed it to Hokuto who pocketed it carefully. The dress she was wearing that day had been designed so the pocket was over the knee. She slipped the note into the slit there.

It was as if Hokuto-chan were dying.

She was after all, being removed from his life, courtesy of Seishirou-san.

When the door opened, Subaru was ready to face him.

Hokuto ran to him and proudly pulled out the piece of paper.

"Look at what Subaru gave me!" she cheered and Seishirou smiled down at her fondly.

Somehow he doubted they'd keep in touch for long. Seishirou-san would surely find a way to neatly detach the two of them, so he could have his daughter all to himself, without an interfering link from the outside world.

"Seishirou-san," Subaru said flatly, unable to play along any longer and Hokuto, caught between the two men, mouthed a farewell at Subaru and excused herself, closing the door behind her.

"Subaru-kun," Seishirou acknowledged him for once and Subaru twitched. He was really picking up on Kamui's habits.

"I see you've bought your first toy. Allow me to congratulate you."

Subaru stared back, his face a void, wondering what the other man was talking about, until it struck him.

Kamui. Of course.

Who else would he be referring to?

And it was true; in reality, Kamui was actually public property.

Subaru's property.

He had bought the teenager's freedom to be able to adopt him and it was something he had sworn never to tell Kamui.

"I wonder what they must have thought of you, Subaru-kun," Seishirou went on, "A reticent twenty-five-year-old man suddenly taking in a helpless sixteen-year-old boy. Many people I know are still wondering what really happens within the walls of your house."

He knew that as well. It was something he'd come to accept as a price for caring for Kamui. He remembered an image of Kamui, with the sun shining through his palm, too terrified to even follow him outside for an errand and felt a flash of the closest thing he had ever known to pure hatred.

If only he knew who it was for.

"You, however, seem to have no idea how to control or maintain your toys, Subaru-kun," Seishirou said.

"Leave Kamui out of this," Subaru said harshly.

Seishirou frowned.

"I don't understand," he said politely, "You seem to think that Kamui is an excuse or a play that I'm using to reach you. You misunderstand me. I'm simply speaking to you since you seem to be the surest way to reach him. There's nothing I ever wanted with _you_, Subaru-kun."

Subaru took a deep breath and pulled his jacket off the back of his chair. It was getting late. The other man seemed to understand that he was being shown out and went over to the door with a smile still on his face.

"Seishirou-san?"

He turned. In all their years, Subaru had never dared to start something once Seishirou had ended the matter.

"Yes, Sumeragi-sensei?"

Subaru ignored the warped greeting.

"Please take care of Hokuto-chan," he said.

There was a sharpened pencil in his pen stand. It was the thought of Kamui waiting for him that was just enough to make him pick it up and throw it into the trashcan before he did anything else with it.

**XXX**

**Author's Note:**

**For the record, in Tokyo Babylon, Hokuto and Seishirou did a lot of fun family things together, along with Subaru, of course. I just transferred it to my Alternate Universe. I also think I have stared at sharpened pencils too much in my life. I don't see them the way normal people do, apparently.**

**So far, I've gotten a few reviews where readers have felt that the plot is moving too slowly. I apologize for not living up to your expectations but I just want to justify myself by saying that there's a reason for all of this and believe or not, a conclusion is fast heading towards you. To make up for this, I've updated this week with two chapters. I hope it clears up some questions.**

**Please read and review! Leave questions in the comments and I'll get back to you.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

**(1 week later)**

That night, just as he was drifting off to sleep, Kamui slid under the covers with him and grabbed some of the blankets for himself like a toddler masking fear with daring bravado. Like a younger brother. Or a lover. But he refused to let himself dwell on that.

Subaru dragged himself back to wakefulness and stayed where he was so he wouldn't crush the younger boy by moving.

"What's wrong?" he asked a little groggily. He knew it wasn't right to indulge a teenager's craving for attention at eleven in the night but indulgence had become a way of life for him so he didn't argue.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Would you be mad at me if I killed Seishirou-san?"

Business as always. He was the most task oriented teenager Subaru had ever met. But when his life was a series of numbers being counted down, everything became something to be crossed off a to-do list with no time for distractions in between.

Nervous silence followed the question.

Subaru sat up and looked down at Kamui in the dark, dislodging the sheets as he did so.

"I don't ever want to hear you calling him that again," he said quietly, "Don't become like me, Kamui. Don't ever chain yourself to someone that way. Do you understand?"

"Okay. What do I call him?"

Subaru lay down again and stretched until he felt sufficiently sleepy.

"You're a teenager. At your age, you should have a lot of things to call him."

Kamui laughed in the dark.

Subaru hadn't answered his first question, but that didn't matter. It had been a blank question, something he already knew the answer to.

There was no way for him to kill Seishirou.

All he could do was to try until he was killed first.

"Do you read the newspaper, Subaru?" Kamui asked suddenly.

"Yes. I do. Why do you ask?"

"Where do you read it?"

"I have a computer or I read it at work. And if it's something important, I'll get it on my phone."

"But do you order newspapers for you to read here?"

Subaru chuckled weakly.

"I think they've stopped delivering them. I forgot to pay my bill."

"Oh. Sorry, then. Good night."

Subaru closed his eyes.

He'd stopped ordering about six days back and luckily, Kamui hadn't noticed.

Everyday, there was a murder in the paper.

That wasn't uncommon. Newspapers were after all, nothing but the harbingers of death and destruction. Kamui must've seen worse things in his movies and books. But he'd been keeping a list and it was beginning to unnerve him.

The days following Kamui's release, bodies had been found. They were all slim teenagers of about sixteen or seventeen, with the same characteristics.

Pale skin.

Black hair.

And each and every one of them had been found with nearly dried violet contact lenses in their eyes, messily inserted before death.

Luckily, on days when he persecuted Kamui with three pages of Math homework and an English and Japanese essay each evening, the teenager was too mentally exhausted to do anything but glare at him and he left the papers untouched.

On the last day, there was yet another murder.

The latest victim's surname had been Tsukishirou.

Tsuki-shirou.

Subaru had stopped buying the paper after that.

On a sudden uncharacteristic impulse, he wound an arm around Kamui's back and drew them both together, feeling the younger boy's sleep-heavy puffs of air warming his neck.

"Seishirou-san," he whispered brokenly, to the alive and pulsating space around them.

XXX

"I want to kill him," Kamui said. He and Subaru were sharing a couch while Arashi and Sorata sat on another one opposite to them.

Sorata said nothing and the light-heartedness was missing on his usually bright face, as he weighed up another of Kamui's reports in his hand. Arashi watched them silently.

"You can't, Kamui," he said gently and the teenager slumped.

"I know it's arrogant to think that way, to imagine that I could actually kill him, but-"

"It would be better if you could do it, but you can't," Arashi agreed, "You need to think of something else."

"What's this report about again?" Subaru asked Kamui and Sorata stared at him with his jaw hinged. Subaru ignored the look. He had no right to pry into Kamui's business even if it put his life in danger and he had accepted that. He would stay while he could without becoming a hindrance.

"An advertisement that markets gender discrimination through a can of deodorant," Kamui said simply and from the way Sorata's eyebrows shot up, Subaru realized that his tuition was doing some good after all.

"What's the brand of the product?" Arashi asked and Kamui told her. It was another item that Seishirou's company had monopoly over and Subaru knew Kamui had chosen it on purpose.

Arashi instead looked daggers at Sorata who stared up at the ceiling.

"Sumeragi-san," he started, excessively loud, "There's a really big crack up there which I think you should-"

"Isn't that the same deodorant in your bathroom?" Arashi cut in, somehow making the temperature go down a few degrees with her voice alone and Sorata gulped.

"I didn't know about that advertisement before, Nee-chan, but now that I do, I'll take the can and-"

"How would _you_ know what _he_ has in _his_ bathroom?" Kamui asked Arashi, clearly intrigued, and Subaru kicked his leg from beside him. The teenager discreetly kicked him back and Arashi turned a brilliant shade of scarlet while Sorata grinned and flashed a thumbs-up.

"Would anyone like some water?" Subaru offered, feeling at a slight loss. Arashi volunteered to get it for them and Subaru let her make an escape.

"Fifteen pages?" Sorata asked again as he stood, tucking the envelope into his worn out school bag.

"Yep."

Sorata went over to Kamui and messed up his hair as the teenager squirmed, but the gesture was too solemn to be of comfort to any of them.

When Arashi returned, looking less harassed, they left together, walking down the dark grey corridors to get an elevator.

"Nee-chan, don't be angry!" Sorata begged as she stomped on his foot and walked on, "When we get back, I, Sora-chan, your eternal servant, will take that can and set it on fire and spear it and destroy it with acid and if you want, we can barbeque it and then-"

His voice faded. Serenity slipped back the apartment.

Kamui smiled at Subaru sheepishly and he tilted his head to the side in answer.

"Please don't kill me for that," he said and the Sumeragi gave him a playful push in reply. He hadn't meant to hold it over Kamui; he had too little fun these days. He didn't begrudge him the little that he could get.

XXX

The Counseling job had given him money. The art of torture had given him protection and exceptions from governmental rules.

It had given him something else.

Kamui.

That was the reason Subaru stood outside the plastic coated doors of the sound-proofed within, his face dead, trying not to imagine what he would have to do to the faceless person he envisioned inside.

"Subaru-kun, may I take your jacket?"

He shook the words out of his head because they'd been left behind in real life at least twenty minutes ago. No. The man standing behind him didn't mean anything to him. He had a mission to complete and he would finish it to satisfaction, for the sake of the sanctuary his bloodied hands could hold up for him and the teenager, for one more day.

He opened the door and stepped in.

The person strapped to the chair was a fair-haired youth maybe five years older than himself. It was too dark in the room to make out anything else except for a pair of glimmering pupils, wide with fear.

He switched on a light and when the room burst into brightness, he saw the way the man's terrified gaze flicked between him and the switch-board for a second longer than it should have.

That told him everything. He knew what he needed to do.

"He was an informant in my company," Seishirou remarked idly and Subaru nearly jumped out of his skin, although he didn't turn back, "His intentions are immaterial but he is guilty of theft of sensitive information and intellectual property. We need to find out how much more he knows. And I don't think you'll be able to adopt this one, Subaru-kun."

Subaru's mouth tightened.

"I trust you know what you need?" Seishirou asked after a while, his voice laced with subtle enthusiasm.

Subaru reached towards the restrained man but his wrist was suddenly dragged back, pulling him along with it and he ended up almost pressed against Seishirou's front.

"Be careful, Subaru-kun," the older man said quietly into his ear as he slipped the wires and electric clamps into his entrapped hand, "You should roll up your sleeves to avoid the bloodstains."

Subaru ground his teeth and wrenched himself away with more force than needed, nearly spraining himself in the process.

"You don't want to frighten Kamui-kun tonight," Seishirou added with a smirk over his shoulder as he left and locked the door behind him.

Green eyes of the torturer. Blue eyes of the victim.

Soon, the screams and red stains would visit too.

XXX

He went home, feeling filthy and cleansed at the same time.

He expected Kamui to be asleep, but the scrabbling from behind the door of his apartment told him that the teenager had waited up.

The door was thrown open and Kamui stood, still in his uniform, with blood-shot eyes, but clearly relieved to see him.

"Subaru!"

He placed his hands lightly on the boy's shoulders to move him out of his way, trying to refrain from touching him at all and came inside gingerly.

"Are you all right?"

So Kamui knew where he'd been. And he cared more about Subaru than his unfortunate victim who was now brain-dead after divulging everything he knew. What a blind boy; just so much like the way he'd been…

"I'm fine. I just need to shower."

Kamui was the reason he hadn't stopped his job after the first failed attempt, the way he'd planned on doing so.

He loved and hated him for it.

"Can I make you coffee?" Kamui offered, violet eyes looking haunted and searching his face for any visible abnormalities.

What could one expect to find amongst smoldering ruins?

"Thank you. I'd like that."

" I wrote the essay you set me," he rambled, just as Subaru tried to leave yet again, "And I managed to get in three whole sides without a spelling mist-"

Kamui stopped talking when Subaru took his face in his hands and made him look up.

"I'm not angry with you," he told the teenager, "You did nothing wrong. Stop worrying and go to sleep."

Kamui slumped and blew out air, his cheeks deflating between Subaru's hands.

"You always tell me that," he protested, but without his usual heat. Subaru smiled and left him there.

XXX

"I know why you stopped buying the newspaper," Kamui said thickly that night, standing over the bed where Subaru lay reading.

He had known it was only a matter of time but it still sent a little electric jolt to hear that.

"Do you have a cold?" he asked instead.

"Yeah. Stop changing the subject."

"You're falling sick from overworking."

"Subaru…"

"Who told you?"

Kamui looked at him almost pityingly.

"There's this thing on your computer and it's called an 'Internet', Subaru. Maybe you might want to use it sometime."

.

.

.

.

"I won't let anything happen to you," he said at last.

"Mmm," Kamui said absently, "Is he doing this to scare me?"

"Yeah."

"It's working," Kamui muttered and ran a hand through his hair, "Can I ask you something, Subaru?"

"What?"

"I have this list of a bunch of words that I don't understand and I was wondering if you could tell me," he said slowly, "I mean, I asked Sorata and he said it would be better if I asked you because you're, well, older."

Subaru straightened up as Kamui unfolded a piece of paper brought out from a pocket somewhere and he fiercely prayed that this was not what he thought it was going to be.

Sumeragi Subaru. Explaining sex to a sixteen-year-old. God, no.

"Kamui," he began quickly as the open list was dropped into his lap, "I think it would be a better idea for you to-"

He stopped.

There were three words on the list.

Home insurance.

Income tax returns.

Mortgage.

"I mean, I know what they mean, but just not how they work," Kamui said defensively as Subaru picked up the paper.

"It's stuff that adults talk about all the time and I didn't want to miss out," the boy added casually.

_Because I'm going to die soon._

Subaru made space for Kamui on the bed, inviting him to sit down.

"I can't," the teenager said.

"Why not?"

"You'll get my cold."

Subaru pulled him down anyway and Kamui, after a few seconds of indecision, willingly curled up against him as Subaru pulled the blankets around them. The teenager was a warm and feverish bundle of cotton pajamas, black hair and barely covered bones that prodded against him. And he was trembling a little. Subaru held him tighter.

"We'll start with the first one," Subaru simply as Kamui lightly sneezed into his shirt, "Insurance is a systematic procedural device used to-"

By the time he reached Income tax, Kamui had fallen asleep.

The omens that lived on in the form of shadows on the walls around them, began to grow darker.

XXX

**Author's Note:**

**Please don't kill me. I just like SubKam angst and fluff in the same fic. Moderation is the key to everything, after all. And hey, I put in some SeiSub too. And to prove that that's not all I'm capable of, there's a little Sorashi there too.**

**Please read and review. It's getting closer. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Subaru's day started with Kamui throwing up over both of them in bed, just as the alarm rang.

"Don't move," Subaru ordered, still half-asleep but totally drenched, as he supported Kamui and leaned him over the edge of the bed, pushing bangs away from his face as the boy retched again all over the floor.

When the alarm clock stopped shrieking, Subaru realized he'd been cheated while buying it. It wasn't waterproof at all.

Kamui tried to protest but his stomach heaved again and he never got to apologize.

By the time he finished, the place reeked and the teenager was half unconscious in his arms.

"I'm sorry," Kamui whispered as Subaru tried to wipe the perspiration from his forehead.

"No ads today," he said firmly and helped Kamui to the living room once he had cleaned him up.

XXX

The headline '_Third-Grader Student Murdered_' didn't really catch Subaru's attention. It was the phrase 'eight-year-old girl' that did.

"No," Subaru whispered without meaning to, as he enlarged the news page on his computer and scanned the story, "Please, not this."

It was her. The description of the nearly charred clothes found on the corpse told him as much. And finally, the phrase that revealed it all.

A single light-up sneaker that had been found.

Seishirou-san.

Subaru knelt over the laptop, staring in disbelief at the story. When Kamui started to cough in the midst of his uneasy sleep, he barely registered the sound.

It was only when a drop of water splattered against the keyboard that he realized that it had come from his damaged right eye.

XXX

"How do they work?" Kamui asked, as he stared at the ad playing across the screen of the television.

"I think they're motion sensors," Subaru replied softly, not really listening. His eyes were a little red and swollen, he knew, but doubted the teenager would notice.

But the look of longing on Kamui's face didn't escape his attention.

"Do you like them?"

Kamui spluttered in protest and shook his head violently.

"There's nothing wrong with it. I'll get them for you if you want them."

Kamui snorted.

"Light up sneakers, Subaru? Seriously?"

XXX

3:08 pm.

Seishirou-san looked the same as ever, but slightly more tired. He had taken his usual care in dressing up and seemed otherwise unaffected. There were three armed police officers behind him, guns in their hands, dressed in white uniforms. A warrant to enter his house was handed to him and Subaru went through it rapidly, checking its authenticity.

Kamui was oblivious to it all, still asleep on the sofa.

"Why are you here?" Subaru demanded quietly, his voice steely.

"To apprehend a murderer, Subaru-kun," Seishirou said smoothly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Subaru snarled, "You know it's impossible."

"You're defensive about something that's not even been insinuated yet, Subaru-kun."

Subaru glared at him but stood his ground, shielding the sleeping boy sprawled behind him.

Seishirou sighed with exaggerated patience.

"You can wake up Kamui-kun yourself," he offered, "or the men behind me will do it. What do you choose?"

Subaru blocked the doorway for another minute, considering it and then realized that he didn't have a choice. He turned away and quickly knelt before Kamui, hiding him from the view of the others.

He carefully ran his fingers through the dark strands of hair, wondering how to do this without sending the younger boy into a frenzy.

"Kamui, I need you to wake up," he said gently, urging him up as he did so.

Kamui stirred under his touch and then opened his eyes. He took in Subaru's face with a babyish smile that was still half-trapped in a world of pleasant dreams and deliriums. However, when the others focused, he jerked straight and tried to bolt off the couch, but Subaru caught him.

"What are they doing here?" he asked almost shrilly, "What the hell do they want, Subaru?"

He caught sight of Seishirou smirking from the door and seized the front of Subaru's shirt with his fingers, while the twenty-five-year-old tried to calm him down.

"Kamui-"

"Not this fast," he cried out too loudly, "I need more time."

"Stop talking," Subaru ordered quietly.

"Interesting phrasing, Subaru-kun," Seishirou remarked from the door, "His words could be misconstrued in a large number of ways. And allow me to remind you that all of this is being recorded."

"No! I'm not ready yet!" Kamui yelled, trying to squirm away as Seishirou's grin grew wider, only visible to the two of them and the officers stepped closer to corner them. Everyone had a breaking point, Subaru understood, and Kamui had reached his.

Subaru hit him.

It was a hard blow to the stomach with his fist, the first time he had ever struck anyone in his life and Kamui went mute, his breath knocked out of his lungs, hurt written all over his face.

"Let me handle this," he told him sternly and Kamui nodded shakily.

"You can't arrest him," Subaru said passively, as he stood again. He felt Kamui clutching the back of his shirt but ignored the sensation for the moment, "He's sick and needs a doctor."

His status as a government employee would do the rest.

"If we got paid for every time we heard that in a day," an officer ventured but was cut off.

"You can see it for yourself," Subaru insisted. He was glad Kamui looked so ghastly; they wouldn't dare to apprehend him when he was still capable of throwing up at the smallest of vibrations. There was still a chance of him doing a show after that punch to his stomach.

"And furthermore, you have no proof," he added.

"That's incorrect," an officer said, "Samples of the suspect's dried bloodstains were found on the victim's clothes and in the surrounding area."

Subaru shut his eyes.

Who else on the planet would have a plentiful supply of Kamui's dried blood?

It would've been child's play to match the blood to its owner because on every report that eventually made its way to Seishirou's hands, Kamui had adamantly put in both his first and last names, purposely making himself traceable.

"Kamui doesn't even know Seishirou-san had a daughter," Subaru said indignantly, marveling at the older man's presence of mind in spite of himself. His only daughter had just been murdered and he was already using her death as a ploy to take down Kamui at the same time. It was impossible for Seichirou-san to have done it himself, he knew. He was sure of that much at least.

He never marred the things that he considered his.

Seishirou-san had waited for this moment, putting up with every sort of delay and stalling, enduring every insult when Kamui managed to get in another poke or pinch, until he received the chance himself to seize the teenager and deliver a mortal blow.

That was all his and Kamui's time had been together. Wasteful moments in both their lives, filled with laughter and teasing and learning, like the comic parts of a movie.

A few glorious moments in the sun.

Before the darkness engulfed them both.

"He didn't have to know anything about that," the officer argued, "He committed the murder. That's all is of consequence."

Subaru knew he was running out of time. The only reason Kamui hadn't been dragged away was because of him but he was at a clear disadvantage.

"I can't allow Kamui to be moved," Subaru said instead, "I have no idea what he's caught but he needs to be diagnosed and treated before anything else."

"That's acceptable," the other officer put in, "We'll allow you to call the professional of your choice and we will stay here until he's been declared normal. But I suggest that you take that action after they finish torturing him, of course. It's problematic to have to call the doctor twice."

"What?" Kamui breathed.

"Kamui-kun, I'll be seeing you tonight," Seishirou said smoothly and left before any of them could say anything.

Subaru scooped Kamui off the couch before the boy lost control again and moved him to the bedroom. When he returned, the three police officers had put away their guns and were sitting in horror in front of his television that had been turned on. He didn't blame them. It was natural to assume that with his money, he had the best of what life could provide.

"You only have sixteen channels?" the first one asked, disbelieving.

Subaru tried to smile but it came out as a grimace.

"Welcome to my life," was all he could bring himself say.

XXX

Kamui woke up again when Subaru slid the chunky icepack under his shirt and clamped down on it through the cloth.

"I'm sorry for hitting you," he said as Kamui sat up dizzily. There was an ugly black mark there and it occurred to Subaru that after Seishirou-san, he was probably the one who had abused Kamui the most.

"It's all right. Can I use that for my head instead?" Kamui asked, referring to the pack.

"No. You need to stay ill for as long as you can."

"It's not fair," Kamui murmured.

"I know. But that's the only thing I can think of to-"

"Not that."

"What is it?"

"When I wanted to die, everyone made me live. And when I started to like living, the world wants me to die."

Kamui looked at his socks and then stared down at the ice pack bulging from underneath his shirt.

"I'm sorry," Subaru said. He was. Everything he had ever tried to do for the teenager had been twisted and broken, like bones being brutally snapped, by a tormentor who smiled at every scream of pain.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Kamui argued, "I knew that I didn't have long. You knew it from the beginning too. I guess we just never expected it to be so…short."

"You're not going to die," Subaru said tersely.

"You're the worst candidate ever for a Counselor," Kamui muttered and closed his eyes as the coldness seeped into his skin, "You can't see what's right in front of your face."

"What are you talking about?"

"I. Am. Going. To. Die. You just delayed it. It's like Cancer."

"I won't let it happen to you," Subaru said again.

Kamui sighed in resignation and slid down so he could lay his head on Subaru's lap.

"Is this okay with you?" he asked nervously, as if suddenly re-thinking his action.

"It is."

"Subaru."

"Yes?"

"I don't regret any of it. I just wanted to tell you that. And thanks for everything."

"I'll try something," Subaru said, clenching his fist, "I'd do anything to get you away from all of this but-"

"I wouldn't mind if it was you. It's just that that other guy is a total son of a-"

"You'd let me torture you?"

"Yeah. Do I sound screwed up?"

"You won't die tonight, Kamui, I swear that."

"I'll leave you to figure out how you're going to get rid of everyone crowded in front of your luxury LED TV, so I can break out," Kamui retorted and closed his eyes again.

XXX

The doctor's diagnosis was negative. Kamui's condition was a mild fever caused by overwork and strain. Provided that he was cared for relatively well, he could be moved that very evening to a detention faculty to meet Seishirou-san.

Neither of them spoke.

"He's obsessed with you," Kamui observed finally.

"Who?" asked Subaru, genuinely startled for the first time.

"Sakurazuka. Him. He can't seem to leave you alone."

"Kamui, I mean _nothing_ to him. He told me so himself years ago," Subaru affirmed, wondering where the hell this particular line of thought had come from.

He came back to sit next to Kamui anyway. The boy was eerily still, and Subaru realized that something like fatalism had seeped into his mind and body, making him unresisting towards the unseen end hurtling towards them both.

"Which is why wherever you're involved, he makes sure to do things personally."

"It's not like that at-"

"You're _blind_," Kamui cut in, his voice harsh, "We're both blind in our own ways but _you_…you take that word and give it a completely new _level_."

He stared at the teenager who glared back at him defiantly.

"I concur."

The voice came from the door that had been opened without their knowledge and both of them jumped.

"Seishirou-san," Subaru replied stonily and Kamui just hissed.

Seishirou smiled almost benevolently down at them both.

"Let's go, Kamui-kun," he said.

XXX

**Author's Note:**

**Things are rapidly going towards their conclusion and I can't wait to present the ending to the fic. It's going to get darker soon and I hope you're looking forward to the future installments.**

**Please read/review/PM/comment. I really appreciate it, even if you can't see me screaming in glee every time I get a review. Just know that I'm doing it and write one, please.**


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